.r<-f 


MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

Going  to  War  in 

Greece 

The  Ways  of  the 

Service 

The  Vagabond 

With  Kuroki  in 

Manchuria 

Over  the  Pass 

The  Last  Shot 

My  Year  of  the 

Great  War 

MY  YEAR  OF  THE 
GREAT  WAR 


BY 

FREDERICK  PALMER 

Author  of  "The  Last  Shot,"  "With  Kuroki  in  Manchuria," 
"The  Vagabond,''  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  &  COMPANY 

1915 


V 


\ 


^ 


Copyright,  1915 
By  dodd,  mead  and  company 


First   Edition   October 
Second,    Third    and    Fourth    Editions    November 


Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


TO  THE  READER 

In  "  The  Last  Shot,"  which  appeared  only  a  few 
months  before  the  Great  War  began,  drawing  from 
my  experience  in  many  wars,  I  attempted  to  describe 
the  character  of  a  conflict  between  two  great  European 
land-powers,  such  as  France  and  Germany. 

"  You  were  wrong  in  some  ways,"  a  friend  writes 
to  me,  "  but  in  other  ways  it  is  almost  as  if  you  had 
written  a  play  and  they  were  following  your  script 
and  stage  business." 

Wrong  as  to  the  duration  of  the  struggle  and  its 
bitterness ;  right  about  the  part  which  artillery  would 
play;  right  in  suggesting  the  stalemate  of  intrench- 
ments  when  vast  masses  of  troops  occupied  the  length 
of  a  frontier.  Had  the  Germans  not  gone  through 
Belgium  and  attacked  on  the  shorter  line  of  the  Franco- 
German  boundary,  the  parallel  of  fact  with  that  of 
prediction  would  have  been  more  complete.  As  for 
the  ideal  of  "  The  Last  Shot,"  we  must  await  the  out- 
come to  see  how  far  it  shall  be  fulfilled  by  a  lasting 
peace. 

Then  my  friend  asks,  "  How  does  it  make  you 
feel?"  Not  as  a  prophet;  only  as  an  eager  ob- 
server, who  finds  that  imagination  pales  beside  reality. 
If  sometimes  an  incident  seemed  a  page  out  of  my 
novel,  I  was  reminded  how  much  better  I  might  have 
done  that  page  from  life ;  and  from  life  I  am  writing 
now. 

I  have  seen  too  much  of  the  war  and  yet  not  enough 
to  assume  the  pose  of  a  military  expert;  which  is  easy 
when  seated  in  a  chair  at  home  before  maps  and  news 
despatches,  but  becomes  fantastic  after  one  has  lived 


vl  TO  THE  READER 

at  the  front.  One  waits  on  more  information  before 
he  forms  conclusions  about  campaigns.  He  is  certain 
only  that  the  Marne  was  a  decisive  battle  for  civilisa- 
tion; that  if  England  had  not  gone  into  the  war  the 
Germanic  Powers  would  have  won  in  three  months. 

No  words  can  exaggerate  the  heroism  and  sacrifice 
of  the  French  or  the  importance  of  the  part  which  the 
British  have  played,  which  we  shall  not  realise  till  the 
war  is  over.  In  England  no  newspapers  were  sup- 
pressed; casualty  lists  were  given  out;  she  gave  pub- 
licity to  dissensions  and  mistakes  which  others  con- 
cealed, in  keeping  with  her  ancient  birthright  of  free 
institutions  which  work  out  conclusions  through  dis- 
cussion rather  than  taking  them  ready-made  from  any 
ruler  or  leader. 

Whatever  value  this  book  has  is  the  reflection  of 
personal  observation  and  the  thoughts  which  have  oc- 
curred to  me  when  I  have  walked  around  my  experi- 
ences and  measured  them  and  found  what  was  worth 
while  and  what  was  not.  Such  as  they  are,  they  are 
real. 

Most  vital  of  all  in  sheer  expression  of  military 
power  was  the  visit  to  tlie  British  Grand  Fleet;  most 
humanly  appealing,  the  time  spent  in  Belgium  under 
German  rule;  most  dramatic,  the  French  victory  on 
the  Marne ;  most  precious,  my  long  stay  at  the  British 
front. 

A  traveller's  view  I  had  of  Germany  in  the  early 
period  of  the  war;  but  I  was  never  with  the  German 
army  which  made  Americans  particularly  welcome  for 
obvious  reasons.  Between  right  and  wrong  one  can- 
not be  a  neutral.  By  foregoing  the  diversion  of  shak- 
ing hands  and  passing  the  time  of  day  on  the  Germanic 
fronts,  I  escaped  having  to  be  agreeable  to  hosts  war- 


TO  THE  READER  vii 

ring  for  a  cause  and  in  a  manner  obnoxious  to  me.  I 
was  among  friends,  living  the  life  of  one  army  and 
seeing  war  in  all  its  aspects  from  day  to  day,  instead 
of  having  tourist  glimpses. 

Chapters  which  deal  with  the  British  army  in 
France  and  with  the  British  fleet  have  been  submitted 
to  the  censor.  In  all,  possibly  one  typewritten  page 
fell  foul  of  the  blue  pencil.  Though  the  censor  may 
delete  military  secrets,  he  may  not  prompt  ooinions. 
Whatever  notes  of  praise  and  of  affection  which  you 
may  read  between  the  lines  or  in  them  spring  from 
the  mind  and  heart.  Undemonstratively,  cheerily  as 
they  would  go  for  a  wall?;,  with  something  of  old-fash- 
ioned chivalry,  the  British  went  to  death. 

Their  national  weaknesses  and  strength,  revealed 
under  external  differences  by  association,  are  more 
akin  to  ours  than  we  shall  realise  until  we  face  our  own 
inevitable  crisis.  Though  one's  ancestors  had  been  in 
America  for  nearly  three  centuries  and  had  fought 
the  British  twice  for  a  good  cause  he  was  continually 
finding  how  much  of  custom,  of  law,  of  habit,  and  of 
instinct  he  had  in  common  with  them ;  and  how  Ameri- 
cans who  were  not  of  British  blood  also  shared  these 
as  an  applied  inheritance  that  has  been  the  most  forma- 
tive element  in  the  crucible  of  the  races  which  has  pro- 
duced the  American  type. 

My  grateful  acknowledgments  are  due  to  the 
American  press  associations  who  considered  me 
worthy  to  be  the  accredited  American  correspondent 
at  the  British  front,  and  to  Collier's  and  Everybody's; 
and  may  an  author  who  has  not  had  the  opportunity 
to  read  proofs  request  the  reader's  indulgence. 

Frederick  Palmer. 

British  Headquarters,  France. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    Who  Started  It? i 

II    "Le  Brave  Belge!" 20 

III  MoNS  and  Paris 29 

IV  Paris  Waits 36 

V    On  the  Heels  of  Von  Kluck 47 

VI    And  Calais  Waits 73 

VII    In   Germany 82 

VIII    How  the  Kaiser  Leads 95 

IX    In  Belgium  Under  the  Germans 113 

X    Christmas  in  Belgium 129 

XI    The  Future  of  Belgium 142 

XII    Winter  in  Lorraine 159 

XIII  Smiles  Among  Ruins 177 

XIV  A  Road  of  War  I  Know 200 

XV    Trenches  in  Winter 214 

XVI    In  Neuve  Chapelle 226 

XVII    With  the  Irish 246 

XVIII    With   the   Guns 262 

XIX    Archibald  the  Archer 284 

XX    Trenches  in   Summer 290 

XXI    A  School  in  Bombing 310 

XXII    My  Best  Day  at  the  Front 316 

XXIII  More  Best  Day 335 

XXIV  Winning    and   Losing 344 

XXV    The  Maple  Leaf  Folk 350 

XXVI    Finding  the  British  Fleet 368 

XXVII    On   a   Destroyer 374 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACE 

XXVIII    Ships  That  Have  Fought 378 

XXIX    On  the  "  Inflexible  " 393 

XXX    On  the  Fleet  Flagship 400 

XXXI    Simply  Hard  Work 412 

XXXII    Hunting  the  Submarine 421 

XXXIII  The  Fleet  Puts  to  Sea 425 

XXXIV  Many  Pictures 433 


XXXV    British  Problems 


446 


MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 


WHO   STARTED   IT? 

The  ultimate  arbitrament  —  The  diplomatist's  status  —  The  causes 
in  the  aims  and  ideals  of  the  peoples  —  Europe's  economic  rela- 
tion to  the  rest  of  the  world  —  The  economic  cause — "Biological 
necessity" — England's  position  —  Her  complacency  —  The  "  Ger- 
man Wedge" — The  German  system  —  Modern  efficiency  meth- 
ods— "A  machine  civil  world" — The  Kaiser's  mission  —  A 
German  the  world  over  —  Germany's  plans  and  ambitions  — 
Her  war  spirit  —  Activities  in  Italy  —  The  Austrian  situation  — 
The  Slav-Teuton  racial  hatred  —  France,  a  nation  with  a  closed- 
in  culture  —  The  Kaiser's  "peace" — The  Germanic  "isolation." 

Who  started  it?  Who  is  to  blame?  The  courts 
decide  the  point  when  there  is  a  quarrel  between 
Smith  and  Jones;  and  it  is  the  ethics  of  simple  jus- 
tice that  no  friend  of  Smith  or  Jones  should  act  as 
judge.  When  the  quarrel  is  between  nations,  the 
neutral  world  turns  to  the  diplomatic  correspondence 
which  preceded  the  breaking-off  of  relations;  and  only 
one  who  is  a  neutral  can  hope  to  weigh  impartially 
the  evidence  on  both  sides.  For  war  is  the  highest 
degree  of  partisanship.  Every  one  engaged  is  a  spe- 
cial pleader. 

I,  too,  have  read  the  White  and  Blue  and  Yellow 
and  Green  Papers.  Others  have  analysed  them  in 
detail;  I  shall  not  attempt  it.  One  learned  less  from 
their  dignified  phraseology  than  from  the  human  mo- 
tives that  he  read  between  the  lines.  Each  was  aim- 
ing to  make  out  the  best  case  for  its  own  side;  aiming 
to  put  the  heart  of  justice  into  the  blows  of  its  arms. 
Obviously,  the  diplomatist  is  an  attorney  for  a  client. 


2        MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Incidentally,  the  whole  training  of  his  profession  is 
to  try  to  prevent  war.  He  does  try  to  prevent  it; 
so  does  every  right-minded  man.  It  is  a  horror  and 
a  scourge,  to  be  avoided  as  you  would  avoid  leprosy. 
When  it  does  come,  the  diplomatist's  business  is  to 
place  all  the  blame  for  it  with  the  enemy. 

One  must  go  many  years  back  of  the  dates  of  the 
State  papers  to  find  the  cause  of  the  Great  War.  He 
must  go  into  the  hearts  of  the  people  who  are  fight- 
ing, into  their  aims  and  ambitions,  which  diplomatists 
make  plausible  according  to  international  law.  More 
illumining  than  the  pamphlets  embracing  an  exchange 
of  despatches  was  the  remark  of  a  practical  German: 
"  Von  Bethmann-Hollweg  made  a  slip  when  he  talked 
of  a  treaty  as  a  scrap  of  paper  and  about  hacking  his 
way  through.     That  had  a  bad  effect." 

Equally  pointed  was  the  remark  of  a  practical 
Briton:  "  It  was  a  good  thing  that  the  Germans  vio- 
lated the  neutrality  of  Belgium;  otherwise,  we  might 
not  have  gone  in,  which  would  have  been  fatal  for  us. 
If  Germany  had  crushed  France  and  kept  the  Chan- 
nel ports,  the  next  step  would  have  been  a  war  in 
which  we  should  have  had  to  deal  with  her  single- 
handed." 

I  would  rather  catch  the  drift  of  a  nation's  purpose 
from  the  talk  of  statesmen  in  the  lobby  or  in  the  club 
than  from  their  oflicial  pronouncements.  Von  Beth- 
mann-Hollweg had  said  in  public  what  was  universally 
accepted  in  private.  He  had  let  the  cat  out  of  the 
bag.  England's  desire  to  preserve  the  neutrality  of 
Belgium  was  not  altogether  ethical.  If  Belgium's 
coast  had  been  on  the  Adriatic  rather  than  on  the 
British  Channel,  her  wrongs  would  not  have  had  the 
support  of  British  arms. 


WHO  STARTED  IT?  3 

Great  moral  causes  were  at  stake  In  the  Great 
War;  but  they  are  inextricably  mixed  with  cool,  na- 
tional self-interest  and  racial  hatreds,  which  are  also 
dictated  by  self-interest,  though  not  always  by  the 
Interests  of  the  human  race.  One  who  sees  the  strug- 
gle of  Europe  as  a  spectator,  with  no  hatred  in  his 
heart  except  of  war  itself,  finds  prejudice  and 
efficiency,  folly  and  merciless  logic,  running  in  com- 
pany. He  would  return  to  the  simplest  principles, 
human  principles,  to  avoid  confusion  in  his  own  mind. 
Not  of  Europe,  he  studies  Europe;  he  wonders  at 
Europe. 

On  a  map  of  the  world  twice  the  size  of  a  foolscap 
page,  the  little  finger's  end  will  cover  the  area  of  the 
struggle.  Europe  is  a  very  small  section  of  the  earth's 
surface,  indeed.  Yet  at  the  thought  of  a  great 
European  war,  all  the  other  peoples  drew  their  breath 
aghast.  When  the  catastrophe  came,  all  were  af- 
fected in  their  most  Intimate  relations,  in  their  Income, 
and  in  their  intellectual  life.  Rare  was  the  mortal 
who  did  not  find  himself  taking  sides  in  what  would 
have  seemed  to  an  astronomer  on  Mars  as  a  local  ter- 
restrial upheaval. 

From  Europe  have  gone  forth  the  waves  of  vigour 
and  enterprise  which  have  had  the  greatest  influence 
on  the  rest  of  the  world,  In  much  the  same  way  that 
they  went  forth  from  Rome  over  the  then  known 
world.  The  war  In  this  respect  was  like  the  great 
Roman  civil  war.  The  dominating  power  of  our  civ- 
ilisation was  at  war  with  itself.  Draw  a  circle  around 
England,  Scandinavia,  the  Germanic  countries,  and 
France,  and  you  have  the  hub  from  which  the  spokes 
radiate  to  the  immense  wheel-rim.  It  Is  a  region 
which  cannot  feed  its  mouths  from  Its  own  soil,  though 


4       MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

it  could  amply  a  little  more  than  a  century  ago  in  the 
Napoleonic  struggle.  In  a  sense,  then,  it  is  a  physical 
parasite  on  the  rest  of  the  world;  a  parasite  which, 
however,  has  given  its  intellectual  energy  in  return  for 
food  for  its  body. 

This  war  had  for  its  object  the  delivery  of  no  people 
from  bondage,  except  the  Belgians  after  the  war  had 
begun;  it  had  no  religious  purpose  such  as  the  Cru- 
sades; it  was  not  the  uprising  of  democracy  like  the 
French  Revolution.  Those  who  charged  the  machine 
guns  and  the  wives  and  mothers  who  urged  them  on 
were  unconscious  of  the  real  force  disguised  by  their 
patriotic  fervour.  Ask  a  man  to  die  for  money  and  he 
refuses.  Ask  him  to  die  in  order  that  he  may  have 
more  butter  on  his  bread  and  he  refuses.  This  is  put- 
ting the  cause  of  war  too  bluntly.  It  is  insulting  to 
courage  and  to  self-sacrifice,  assessing  them  as  some- 
thing set  on  a  counter  for  sale.  For  nations  do  not 
know  why  they  fight,  as  a  rule.  Processes  of  evolution 
and  chains  of  events  arouse  their  patriotic  ardour  and 
their  martial  instinct  till  the  climax  comes  in  blows. 

The  cause  of  the  European  war  is  economic;  and,  by 
the  same  token,  Europe  kept  the  peace  for  forty  years 
for  economic  reasons.  She  was  busy  skimming  the 
cream  of  the  resources  of  other  countries.  Hers  was 
the  capital,  the  skill,  the  energy,  the  morale,  the  cul- 
ture, for  exploiting  the  others.  All  modern  invention 
originated  with  her  or  with  the  ofi^spring  of  her  races 
beyond  seas.  Steamers  brought  her  raw  material, 
which  she  sent  back  in  manufactures;  they  took  forth, 
in  place  of  the  buccaneers  of  former  days  seeking  gold, 
her  financiers,  engineers,  salesmen,  and  teachers,  who 
returned  with  tribute  or  sent  back  the  interest  on  the 
capital  they  had  applied  to  enterprise.     She  looked 


WHO  STARTED  IT?  5 

down  on  the  rest  of  the  world  with  something  of  the 
Roman  patrician  feeling  of  superiority  to  outsiders. 

But  also  the  medical  scientist  kept  pace  with  other 
scientists  and  with  invention.  Sanitation  and  the 
preservation  of  life  led  to  an  amazing  rapidity  of  in- 
crease in  population.  There  were  more  mouths  to 
feed  and  more  people  who  must  have  work  and  share 
the  tribute.  Without  the  Increase  of  population  It  is 
possible  that  we  should  not  have  had  war.  Biological 
necessity  played  its  part  in  bringing  on  the  struggle, 
along  with  economic  pressure.  The  richest  veins  of 
the  mines  of  other  lands,  the  most  accessible  wood  of 
the  forests,  were  taken,  and  a  higher  rate  of  living  all 
over  Europe  increased  the  demand  of  the  numbers. 

Most  fortunate  of  all  the  European  peoples  were 
the  British.  Most  significant  in  this  material  progress 
was  the  part  of  Germany.  England  had  a  narrow 
stretch  of  salt  water  between  her  and  the  other  nations. 
They  could  fight  one  another  by  crossing  a  land  fron- 
tier; to  fight  her,  they  must  cross  in  ships.  She  had 
the  advantage  of  being  of  Europe  and  yet  separated 
from  Eufope.  All  the  seas  were  the  secure  pathway 
for  her  trade,  guaranteed  for  a  century  by  the  victory 
of  Trafalgar.  By  war  she  had  won  her  sea  power; 
by  war  she  was  the  mistress  of  many  colonies.  Ger- 
many's increasing  mercantile  marine  had  to  travel 
from  a  narrow  sea  front  through  the  channel  called 
British.  Rich  was  England's  heritage  beyond  her  own 
realisation.  Hers  the  accumulated  capital;  hers  the 
field  of  resources  under  her  own  flag  to  exploit. 

But  she  had  done  more.  Through  a  century's  ex- 
perience she  had  learned  the  strength  of  moderation. 
What  she  had  won  by  war  she  was  holding  by  wisdom. 
If  some  one  must  guard  the  seas,  if  some  one  must 


6        MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

have  dominion  over  brown  and  yellow  races,  she  was 
well  fitted  for  the  task.  Wherever  she  had  dominion, 
whether  Bombay  or  Hongkong,  there  was  freedom  in 
trade  and  in  development  for  all  men.  We  who  have 
travelled  recognise  this. 

When  the  war  began,  South  Africa  had  no  British 
regular  garrisons,  but  the  Boers,  a  people  who  had  lost 
their  nation  in  war  with  her  fifteen  years  before,  took 
up  arms  under  her  flag  to  invade  a  German  colony. 
India  without  a  parliament,  India  ruled  by  English 
governors,  sent  her  troops  to  fight  in  France.  In  place 
of  sedition,  loyalty  from  a  brave  and  hardy  white 
people  of  another  race  and  from  hundreds  of  millions 
of  brown  men !  Such  power  is  not  gained  by  war,  but 
by  the  policy  of  fair  play;  of  live  and  let  live.  Mea- 
surably, she  held  in  trust  those  distant  lands  for  the 
other  progressive  nations;  she  was  the  policeman  of 
wide  domains.  Certainly  no  neutral,  at  least  no 
American,  envied  her  the  task.  Certainly  no  neutral, 
for  selfish  reasons  if  for  no  other,  would  want  to  risk 
chaos  throughout  the  world  by  the  transfer  of  that 
power  to  another  nation. 

England  was  satiated,  as  Admiral  Mahan  said. 
She  had  gained  all  that  she  cared  to  hold.  It  Is  not  too 
much  to  say  that,  of  late  years,  colonies  might  come 
begging  to  her  doorstep  and  be  refused.  Those  who 
held  her  wealth  were  complacent  as  well  as  satiated  — 
which  was  her  danger.  For  complacency  goes  with 
satiation.  But  she,  too,  was  suffering  from  having 
skimmed  the  cream,  for  want  of  mines  and  concessions 
as  rich  as  those  which  had  filled  her  coffers,  and  from 
the  demand  of  the  increased  population  become  used 
to  a  higher  rate  of  living.  Her  vast,  accumulated 
wealth  in  investments  the  world  over  was  in  relatively 


WHO  STARTED  IT?  7 

few  hands.  In  no  great  European  country,  perhaps, 
was  wealth  more  unevenly  distributed.  Her  old  age 
pensions  and  many  social  reforms  of  recent  years  arose 
from  a  restlessness,  locally  intensified  but  not  alone  of 
local  origin. 

Another  flag  was  appearing  too  frequently  in  her 
channel.  A  wedge  was  being  forced  into  her  com- 
placency. A  competitor  who  worked  twelve  hours  a 
day,  while  complacency  preferred  eight  or  ten,  met  the 
Englishman  at  every  turn.  A  navy  was  growing  in  the 
Baltic;  taxes  pressed  heavily  on  complacency  to  keep  up 
a  navy  stronger  than  the  young  rival's.  Who  really 
was  to  blame  for  the  clerks'  pay  being  kept  down,  while 
the  cost  of  living  went  up  ?  That  cheap-living  German 
clerk!  What  capitalist  was  pressing  the  English  cap- 
italist? The  German !  The  newspapers  were  always 
hinting  at  the  German  danger.  Certain  interests  in 
England,  as  in  any  other  country,  were  glad  to  find  a 
scapegoat.  Why  should  Germany  want  colonies  when 
England  ruled  her  colonies  so  well?  Germany  —  al- 
ways Germany,  whatever  way  you  looked,  Germany 
with  her  seventy  millions,  aggressive,  enterprising,  in- 
dustrious, organised !  The  pressure  of  the  wedge  kept 
increasing.     Something  must  break. 

Does  any  one  doubt  that  if  Germany  had  been  in 
England's  place  she  would  have  struck  the  rival  in  the 
egg?  But  that  Is  not  the  way  of  complacency.  Nor 
is  it  the  way  of  that  wisdom  of  moderation,  that  live 
and  let  live,  which  has  kept  the  British  Empire  intact. 

Germany  wanted  room  for  her  wedge.  In  Central 
Europe,  with  foes  on  either  side,  she  had  to  hold  two 
land  frontiers  before  she  could  start  her  sea  wedge. 
She  was  the  more  readily  convinced  that  England  had 
■won  all  she  held  by  war  because  modern  Germany  was 


8        MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  product  of  war.  By  war  Prussia  won  Schleswlg- 
Holstein;  by  war  Germany  won  Alsace-Lorraine,  and 
welded  the  Germanic  peoples  into  a  whole.  It  was 
only  natural  that  the  German  public  should  be  loyal  to 
the  system  that  had  fathered  German  success. 

Thus,  England  reveres  its  Wellingtons,  Nelsons, 
Pitts,  and  maintains  the  traditions  of  the  regiments 
which  fought  for  her.  Thus,  we  are  loyal  to  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  because  it  was  drafted 
by  the  forefathers  who  made  the  nation.  If  it  had 
been  drafted  in  the  thirties  we  should  think  it  more 
fallible.  It  is  the  nature  of  individuals,  of  business 
concerns,  of  nations,  to  hold  with  the  methods  that  laid 
the  foundations  of  success  till  some  cataclysm  shows 
that  they  are  wrong  or  antiquated.  This  reckoning 
may  be  sudden  loss  of  his  position  in  a  crisis  for  the 
individual,  bankruptcy  for  the  business  concern,  war 
for  the  nation.  One  sticks  to  the  doctor  who  cured 
him  when  he  was  young  and  perhaps  goes  to  an  early 
grave  because  that  doctor  has  grown  out  of  date. 

The  old  Kaiser,  Bismarck,  and  von  Moltke  laid  the 
basis  of  the  German  system.  It  was  industry,  unity, 
and  obedience  to  superiors,  from  bottom  to  top.  Un- 
der it,  if  not  because  of  it,  Germany  became  a  mighty 
national  entity.  Another  Kaiser,  who  had  the  merit  of 
making  the  most  of  his  inheritance,  with  other  generals 
and  leaders,  brought  modern  methods  to  the  service  of 
the  successful  system.  A  new,  up-to-date  doctor  suc- 
ceeded the  old,  with  the  inherited  authority  of  the  old. 

That  aristocratic,  exclusive  German  officer,  staring 
at  you,  elbowing  you  if  you  did  not  give  him  right  of 
way  in  the  street,  seemed  to  express  insufferable  caste 
to  the  outsider.  But  he  was  a  part  of  the  system  which 
had  won ;  and  he  worked  longer  hours  than  the  officers 


WHO  STARTED  IT?  9 

of  other  European  armies.  Seeming  to  enjoy  enor- 
mous privileges,  he  was  really  a  circumscribed  being, 
subject  to  all  the  rigid  discipline  that  he  demanded  of 
others,  bred  and  fashioned  for  war.  Wherever  I 
have  met  foreign  military  attaches  observing  other 
wars,  the  German  was  the  busiest  one,  the  most  per- 
sistent and  resourceful  after  information;  and  he  was 
not  acting  on  his  own  initiative,  but  under  careful 
instructions  of  a  staff  who  knew  exactly  what  it  wanted 
to  know.  "  Germany  shall  be  first!  "  was  his  motto; 
"  Germany  shall  be  first!  "  the  motto  of  all  Germans. 

In  the  same  way  that  von  Moltke  constructed  his 
machine  army,  the  Germany  of  the  young  Kaiser  set 
out  to  construct  a  machine  civil  world.  He  had  a 
public  which  was  ready  to  be  moulded,  because  plas- 
ticity to  the  master's  hand  had  beaten  France.  Drill, 
application,  and  discipline  had  done  the  trick  for  von 
Moltke  —  these  and  leadership.  The  new  method 
was  economic  education  plus  drill,  application,  and 
discipline. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  describe  the  industrial  beehive  of 
modern  Germany.  The  world  knows  it  well.  The 
Kaiser,  who  led,  worked  as  hard  as  the  humblest  of  his 
subjects.  From  the  top  came  the  impetus  which  the 
leaders  passed  on.  Germany  looked  for  worlds  to 
conquer;  England  had  conquered  hers.  The  energy 
of  increasing  population  overflowed  from  the  bound- 
aries, pushing  that  wedge  closer  home  to  an  England 
growing  more  irritably  apprehensive. 

Wherever  the  traveller  went  he  found  Germans, 
whether  waiters,  or  capitalists,  or  salesmen,  learning 
the  language  of  the  country  where  they  lived,  making 
place  for  themselves  by  their  industry.  Germany  was 
struggling  for  room,  and  the  birth  rate  was  Increasing 


10     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  excess  of  population.  The  business  of  German 
nationalism  was  to  keep  them  all  in  Germany  and 
mould  them  into  so  much  more  power  behind  the  sea 
wedge.  The  German  teaching  —  that  teaching  of  a 
partisan  youth  which  is  never  complacent  —  did  not 
contemplate  a  world  composed  of  human  beings,  but  a 
world  composed  of  Germans,  loyal  to  the  Kaiser,  and 
others  who  were  not.  Within  that  tiny  plot  on  the 
earth's  surface  the  German  system  was  giving  more 
people  a  livelihood  and  more  comforts  for  their  re- 
sources than  anywhere  else,  unless  in  Belgium. 

Germany  and  her  Kaiser  believed  that  she  had  a 
mission  and  the  right  to  more  room.  Wherever  there 
was  an  opportunity  she  appeared  with  his  aggressive 
paternalism  to  get  ground  for  Germanic  seed.  The 
experience  of  her  opportunistic  fishing  in  the  troubled 
waters  of  Manila  Bay  in  '98  is  still  fresh  in  the 
minds  of  many  Americans.  She  went  into  China  dur- 
ing the  Boxer  rebellion  in  the  same  spirit.  She  had 
her  foot  thrust  into  every  doorway  ajar  and  was  push- 
ing with  all  her  organised  imperial  might,  which  kept 
growing. 

I  never  think  of  modern  Germany  without  calling  to 
mind  two  Germans  who  seem  to  me  to  illustrate  Ger- 
man strength  —  and  weakness.  In  a  compartment 
on  a  train  from  Berlin  to  Holland  some  years  ago,  an 
Englishman  was  saying  that  Germany  was  a  balloon 
which  would  burst.  He  called  the  Kaiser  a  vain  mad- 
man and  set  his  free  English  tongue  on  his  dislike  of 
Prussian  boorishness,  aggressiveness,  and  verhotens. 
I  told  him  that  I  should  never  choose  to  live  in  Pi-ussia ; 
I  preferred  England  or  France ;  but  I  thought  that  Eng- 
land was  closing  her  eyes  to  Germany's  development. 
The  Kaiser  seemed  to  me  a  very  clever  man,  his  people 


WHO  STARTED  IT?  ii 

on  the  whole  loyal  to  him;  while  it  was  wonderful 
how  so  great  a  population  had  been  organised  and 
cared  for.  We  might  learn  the  value  of  co-ordination 
from  Germany,  without  adopting  militarism  or  other 
characteristics  which  we  disliked. 

The  Englishman  thought  that  I  was  pro-German. 
For  in  Europe  one  must  always  be  pro  or  anti  some- 
thing; Francophile  or  Francophobe,  Germanophile  or 
Germanophobe.  I  noticed  the  train-guard  listening  at 
intervals  to  our  discussion.  Perhaps  he  knew  English. 
Many  German  train  guards  do.  Few  English  or 
French  train-guards  know  any  but  their  own  language. 
This  also  is  suggestive,  if  you  care  to  take  it  that  way. 

When  I  left  the  train,  the  guard,  instead  of  a  porter, 
took  my  bag  to  the  custom  house.  Probably  he  was 
of  a  mind  to  add  to  his  income,  I  thought.  After  I 
was  through  the  customs  he  put  my  bag  in  a  compart- 
ment of  the  Dutch  train.  When  I  offered  him  a  tip, 
the  manner  of  his  refusal  made  me  feel  rather  mean. 
He  saluted  and  clicked  his  heels  together  and  said: 
"  Thank  you,  sir,  for  what  you  said  about  my  Em- 
peror !  "  and  with  a  military  step  marched  back  to  the 
German  train.  How  he  had  boiled  inwardly  as  he 
listened  to  the  Englishman  and  held  his  temper,  think- 
ing that  "  the  day  "  was  coming! 

The  second  German  was  first  mate  of  a  little  Ger- 
man steamer  on  the  Central  American  coast.  The 
mark  of  German  thoroughness  was  on  him.  He  spoke 
English  and  Spanish  well;  he  was  highly  efficient,  so 
far  as  I  could  tell.  After  passing  through  the  Straits 
of  Magellan,  the  steamer  went  as  far  as  Vancouver  in 
British  Columbia.  Its  traffic  was  the  small  kind  which 
the  English  did  not  find  worth  while,  but  which  tireless 
Qerman  capability  in  details  and  cheap  labour  m^de 


12      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

profitable.  The  steamer  stopped  at  every  small  West, 
South,  and  Central  American  and  Mexican  port  to  take 
on  and  leave  cargo.  At  any  hour  of  the  night  anchor 
was  dropped,  perhaps  in  a  heavy  ground-swell  and 
almost  invariably  in  intense  tropical  heat.  Sometimes 
a  German  coffee  planter  came  on  board  and  had  a  glass 
of  beer  with  the  captain  and  the  mate.  For  nearly  all 
the  rich  Guatemala  coffee  estates  had  passed  into  Ger- 
man hands.  The  Guatemaltecan  dictator  taxed  the 
native  owners  bankrupt  and  the  Germans,  in  collusion 
with  him,  bought  in  the  estates. 

Life  for  that  mate  was  a  battle  with  filthy  carga- 
dores  in  stifling  heat;  he  snatched  his  sleep  when  he 
might  between  ports.  The  steamer  was  in  Hamburg 
to  dock  and  refit  once  a  year.  Then  he  saw  his  wife 
and  children  for  at  most  a  month;  sometimes  for  only 
a  week.  In  any  essay-contest  on  "  Is  Life  Worth  Liv- 
ing? "  it  seemed  to  me  he  ought  to  win  the  prize  for 
the  negative  side. 

"  Since  I  have  been  on  this  run  I  have  seen  Cali- 
fornia ranches,"  he  said.  "  If  I  had  come  out  to  Cal- 
ifornia fifteen  years  ago,  when  I  thought  of  emigrating 
to  America,  by  working  half  as  hard  as  I  have 
worked  —  and  that  would  be  harder  than  most  Cali- 
fornia ranchers  work  —  I  could  have  had  my  own  plot 
of  ground  and  my  own  house  and  lived  at  home  with 
my  family.  But  when  I  spoke  of  emigrating  I  was 
warned  against  it.  Maybe  you  don't  know  that  the 
local  oflicials  have  orders  to  dissuade  intending  emi- 
grants from  their  purpose.  They  told  me  that  the 
United  States  and  Canada  were  lands  of  graft,  injus- 
tice, and  disorder,  where  native  Americans  formed  a 
caste  which  kept  all  immigrants  at  manual  labour.  I 
should  be  robbed  and  forced  to  work  for  the  trusts  for 


WHO  STARTED  IT?  13 

a  pittance.  Instead  of  an  imperial  government  to 
protect  me,  I  should  be  exploited  by  millionaire  kings. 
Wasn't  I  a  German?  Wasn't  I  loyal  to  my  Kaiser? 
Would  I  forfeit  my  nationality?  This  appeal  decided 
me.     And  I  am  too  old,  now,  to  start  at  ranching." 

Had  I  been  one  of  those  wicked  millionaire  kings 
of  the  United  States  or  Canada,  I  should  have  set  this 
man  up  on  a  ranch,  believing  that  he  was  not  yet  too 
old  to  make  good  in  a  new  land  if  he  were  given  a 
fair  start,  knowing  that  he  would  pay  back  the  capital 
with  interest;  and  I  have  known  wicked  millionaire 
kings  to  be  guilty  of  such  lapses  as  this  from  their 
t}Tanny. 

The  imperial  German  system  wanted  his  earning 
power  and  energy  back  of  the  sea  wedge.  German 
steamship  companies  promoted  emigration  from  Hun- 
gary, Russia,  and  Italy  for  the  fares  it  brought.  The 
German  government,  however,  took  care  that  the 
steamship  companies  carried  no  German  emigrants; 
and  it  ruled  that  no  Russian  peasant  or  Polish  Jew 
bound  for  Hamburg  or  Bremen  on  the  way  to  America 
might  stop  over  en  route  across  Germany,  lest  he  stay. 
Russians  and  Poles  and  Jews  were  not  desirable  ma- 
terial for  the  German  sea  wedge.  Let  them  go  into 
the  pot-aii-feu  of  the  capacious  and  indiscriminating 
American  melting-pot,  which  may  yet  make  something 
of  them  that  will  surprise  the  chauvinists. 

Breed  more  Germans;  keep  them  fed,  clothed,  em- 
ployed, organised  industrially,  educated!  Don't  re- 
lieve the  economic  pressure  by  emigration  or  by  lower- 
ing the  birth  rate !  Keep  up  the  military  spirit !  De- 
velop the  money  spirit!  Instilled  with  loyalty  to  the 
Kaiser,  with  a  sense  of  superiority  in  industry  and 
training  as  well  as  of  racial  superiority,  the  German 


14      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

felt  himself  the  victim  of  a  world  injustice.  He  saw 
complacent  England  living  on  the  fat  of  empire.  He 
saw  America  with  its  rich  resources  and  lack  of  civil 
organisation  and  discipline  and  its  waste  individual 
effort. 

If  the  United  States  only  would  not  play  the  dog  in 
the  manger!  If  Germany  could  apply  the  magic  of 
her  system  to  Mexico  or  Central  America,  what  tribute 
that  would  bring  home  to  Berlin!  Consider  organ- 
ised German  industrialism  working  India  for  all  that 
it  was  worth !  Or  Zanzibar !  Or  the  Straits  Settle- 
ments !  Germany  had  the  restless  ambition,  with  an 
undercurrent  of  resentment,  of  the  young  manager 
with  modern  methods  who  wants  to  supplant  the  old 
manager  and  his  old-fogy  methods  —  an  old  manager 
set  in  his  way,  but  a  very  kindly,  sound  old  manager, 
to  whose  ways  the  world  had  grown  accustomed. 

Taxes  for  armament,  and  particularly  for  that  new 
navy,  lay  heavily  on  Germany,  too.  Driving  the 
wedge  by  peaceful  means  became  increasingly  difficult. 
It  needed  the  blow  of  war  to  split  open  the  way  to  rich 
fields.  The  war  spirit  lost  nothing  by  Germany's 
sense  of  isolation.  For  this  isolation  England  was  to 
blame;  she  and  the  alliances  which  King  Edward  had 
formed  around  her.  England  was  to  blame  for  every- 
thing. Germany  could  not  be  to  blame  for  anything. 
The  national  rival  is  always  the  scapegoat  of  patriot- 
ism. So  Germany  prepared  to  strike,  as  one  prepares 
to  build  and  open  a  store  or  to  put  on  a  play. 

Where  forty  years  ago  the  Englishman,  with  his 
aggressive  ways,  was  the  unpopular  traveller  in 
Europe,  the  German  had  become  most  disliked.  In 
Italy,  with  his  expanding  industry,  he  ran  many  hotels. 
His  success  and  his  personal  manners  combined  to 


WHO  STARTED  IT?  15 

make  the  sensitive  Italian  loathe  him.  Thus,  he 
sowed  the  seed  of  popular  feeling  which  broke  in  a 
wave  that  forced  Italy  into  the  war. 

Germany  thought  of  England  as  too  selfish  and  cun- 
ning in  her  complacency  really  to  come  to  the  aid  of 
France  and  Russia.  She  would  stay  out;  and  had  she 
stayed  out,  Germany  would  have  crushed  Russia  and 
then  turned  on  France.  But  Germany  did  not  know 
England  any  better  than  England  knew  Germany. 
The  jaundiced  mists  of  chauvinism  kept  even  high  lead- 
ers from  seeing  their  adversaries  clearly. 

Austria,  too,  was  feeling  economic  pressure.  Her 
people,  especially  the  Hungarians,  looked  toward  the 
southeast  for  expansion.  Her  shrewd  statesmanship, 
its  instincts  inherited  from  the  Hapsburg  dynasty, 
playing  race  hatred  against  race  hatred  and  bound,  so 
it  looked,  to  national  disruption,  welcomed  any  oppor- 
tunity which  would  set  the  mind  of  the  whole  people 
thinking  of  some  exterior  object  rather  than  of  internal 
differences.  She  annexed  Bosnia-Herzegovina  with 
its  Slav  population  at  a  moment  when  Russia  was  not 
prepared  to  aid  her  kindred.  Bosnia  and  Herzego- 
vina are  better  off  for  the  annexation;  they  have 
enjoyed  rapid  material  progress  as  the  result. 

Bounded  by  the  Danube  and  the  Turk  were  the 
Balkan  countries,  which  ought  to  be  the  garden  spot  of 
civilisation.  Here,  poverty  aggravated  racial  hate 
and  racial  hate  aggravated  poverty  in  a  vicious  circle. 
Serbia,  longest  free  of  the  Turk,  adjoining  Austria, 
had  no  outlet  except  through  other  lands.  She  was  a 
commercial  slave  of  Austria,  dependent  on  Austrian 
tariffs  and  Austrian  railroads,  with  Hungarian  business 
men  holding  the  purse-strings  of  trade.  In  her  swine- 
herds and  tillers  the  desire  for  some  of  the  good  things 


1 6     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  modern  life  was  developing.  Strangling,  with 
Austria's  hands  at  her  throat,  with  many  clever,  re- 
sourceful agitators  urging  her  on,  she  fought  in  the 
only  way  that  she  knew.  To  Austria  she  was  the  un- 
couth swineherd  who  assassinated  the  Austrian  Crown 
Prince  and  his  consort.  This  deed  was  the  exterior 
object  which  united  Austria  in  a  passionate  rage.  For 
Austria,  more  than  any  other  country,  could  welcome 
war  for  the  old  reason.  It  let  out  the  emotion  of  the 
nation  against  an  enemy  instead  of  against  its  own 
rulers. 

A  deeper-seated  cause  was  the  racial  hatred  of  Slav 
and  Teuton.  For  rulers  do  not  make  war  these  days; 
they  try  to  keep  their  thrones  secure  on  the  crest  of 
public  opinion.  They  appear  to  rule  and  to  give,  and 
are  ruled  and  yield.  Whoever  had  travelled  in  Russia 
of  late  years  had  been  conscious  of  a  rising  ground- 
swell  in  the  great  mass  of  Russian  feeling.  Your  sim- 
ple moujik  had  an  idea  that  his  Czar  had  yielded  to  the 
Austrians  and  the  Germans.  In  short,  the  German 
had  tweaked  the  nose  of  the  Slav  race  with  the  annexa- 
tion of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  and  the  Czar  had  borne 
the  insult  because  his  people  were  willing. 

Slow  to  think,  and  not  thinking  overmuch,  the  Rus- 
sian peasant  began  to  see  red  whenever  he  thought  of 
a  German.  As  a  whole  public  thinks,  eventually  its 
rulers  must  think.  The  upper  class  of  Russia  was  in- 
clined to  fan  the  flames  of  the  people's  passions.  If 
the  people  were  venting  their  emotions  against  the 
Teuton  they  would  not  be  developing  further  revolu- 
tions against  the  old  order  of  things.  The  military 
class  was  prompt  to  make  use  of  the  national  tendency 
to  strengthen  military  resources.     By  action  and  re- 


WHO  STARTED  IT?  17 

action  across  the  frontiers  the  strain  was  increasing. 
Germany  saw  Russia  with  double  her  own  population 
and  was  sensitive  to  the  dangers  behind  Russia's  am- 
bitions. Russia  stood  for  everything  abhorrent  to 
German  order  and  racial  feehng. 

And  what  of  France?  There  is  little  to  say  of  her 
when  we  assign  responsibility.  Here  was  a  nation 
with  its  population  practically  stationary;  a  nation  with 
a  closed-in  culture ;  a  democracy  with  its  racial  and  na- 
tional integrity  assured  by  its  own  peculiar  genius. 
Visions  of  conquest  had  passed  from  the  French  mind. 
Her  "  place  in  the  sun  "  was  her  own  sun  of  France. 
Her  trade  was  that  due  to  skill  in  handicraft  rather 
than  to  any  tactics  of  aggression.  At  every  Hague 
conference  France  was  for  all  measures  that  would 
assure  peace;  Germany  against  every  one  that  might 
interfere  with  her  military  ambition;  England  against 
any  that  might  limit  her  action  in  defending  the  seas. 

The  desire  for  "  revenge  "  for  '70  had  died  out  in 
the  younger  generation  of  Frenchmen.  Her  station- 
ary population,  which  chauvinists  resented,  had  solved 
the  problem  of  expansion.  From  father  to  son,  she 
could  be  content  with  her  thrift,  her  industry,  and  her 
arts,  and  with  the  joy  of  living.  For,  more  than  any 
other  European  nation,  she  had  that  gift:  the  joy  of 
living.  Her  armies  and  her  alliances  were  truly  for 
defence.  She  could  not  fight  Germany  and  Austria 
alone.  She  must  have  help.  If  Russia  went  to  war 
she,  too,  must  go  to  war.  She  acted  up  to  her  belief 
when  she  held  back  her  armies  five  miles  from  the 
frontier  till  the  German  struck;  when  she  gave  Ger- 
many a  start  in  mobilisation  —  a  start  which,  with 
England's  delay,  came  near  being  fatal  for  her.     That 


1 8      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

price  she  paid  for  peace;  that  advantage  Germany 
gained  by  striking  first.  It  is  a  hard  moral  for  the 
pacificists,  but  one  which  ought  to  give  the  French  con- 
science a  cleaner  taste  in  after  years. 

The  Kaiser,  too,  insisted  that  he  was  for  peace.  So 
he  was,  according  to  German  logic.  He  realised  his 
mihtary  power  as  the  outside  world  could  not  realise 
it.  ,  Had  Italy  joined  her  forces  to  her  allies,  he  might 
have  crushed  France  and  then  turned  on  Russia,  as 
his  staff  had  planned.  For  striking  he  could  reduce 
France  to  a  second-rate  power,  take  her  colonies,  fatten 
German  coffers  with  an  enormous  indemnity,  and  gain 
Belgium  and  the  Channel  ports  as  the  next  step  in  na- 
tional ambition  before  crushing  England  and  securing 
the  mastery  of  the  seas.  But  he  held  off  the  blow  for 
many  years;  that  is  the  logic  of  his  partisanship  for 
peace.  The  fact  that  France  proved  stronger  than  he 
thought  hardly  interfered  with  his  belief  in  his  own 
moderation,  in  view  of  his  confidence  in  his  arms  be- 
fore the  test  came.  He  was  for  peace  because  he  did 
not  knock  the  other  man  down  as  soon  as  he  might. 

No  other  race  in  all  Europe  liked  the  Germans;  not 
even  the  Huns,  or  the  Czechs,  or  the  Croats,  and  least 
of  all  the  Italians.  The  Belgians,  too,  shared  the  uni- 
versal enmity.  It  was  Germany  that  Belgium  feared. 
Her  forts  looked  toward  Germany;  she  looked  toward 
England  and  France  for  protection.  In  this  she  was 
unneutral;  but  not  in  the  thing  that  counted  —  thor- 
ough military  preparation. 

Thus  were  the  Germanic  empires  isolated  in  senti- 
ment before  the  war  began.  This  strengthened  their 
realisation  that  their  one  true  ally  was  their  power  in 
arms,  unaffected  by  any  sentiment  except  that  of  beat- 
ing their  enemies.     Europe,  straining  under  the  taxa- 


WHO  STARTED  IT?  19 

tlon  of  preparation,  long  held  back  by  fear  of  the 
cataclysm,  yet  drawn  by  curiosity  as  to  the  nature  of  its 
capacity,  sent  her  millions  of  soldiers  to  that  test  in 
practice  of  the  struggle  of  modern  arms  which  had 
been  the  haunting  subject  of  her  speculation. 


II 

"  LE   BRAVE   BELGe!  " 

The  stampede  to  Europe  —  Early  days  in  Belgium  —  Characteristics 
of  the  Allies'  armies  —  Rumours  —  First  skirmishes  —  When 
would  the  English  come?  —  Shipperke  spirit  —  Pathos  of  the  Bel- 
gian defence  —  A  Taube  and  a  Belgian  cyclist  patrol  —  Brus- 
sels before  its  fall  —  A  momentous  decision. 

The  rush  from  Monterey,  In  Mexico,  when  a  telegram 
said  that  general  European  war  was  Inevitable;  the 
run  and  jump  aboard  the  Liisitania  at  New  York  the 
night  that  war  was  declared  by  England  against  Ger- 
many; the  Atlantic  passage  on  the  liner  of  Ineffaceable 
memory,  a  suspense  broken  by  fragments  of  war  news 
by  wireless;  the  arrival  In  an  England  before  the  war 
was  a  week  old;  the  journey  to  Belgium  In  the  hope  of 
reaching  the  scene  of  action!  —  as  I  write,  all  seem  to 
have  the  perspective  of  history,  so  final  are  the  proc- 
esses of  war,  so  swift  their  execution,  and  so  eager 
is  every  one  for  each  day's  developments.  As  one 
grows  older  the  years  seem  shorter;  but  the  first  year 
of  the  Great  War  Is  the  longest  year  I  have  known. 

Le  brave  Beige!  One  must  be  honest  about  him. 
If  one  lets  his  heart  run  away  with  his  judgment  he 
does  his  mind  an  Injustice.  A  fellow-countryman  who 
was  In  London  and  fresh  from  home  in  the  eighth 
month  of  the  war,  asked  me  for  my  views  of  the  rela- 
tive efficiency  of  the  different  armies  engaged. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  I  am  to  speak  without  regard  to 
personal  sympathies?"  I  asked. 

"  Certainly,"  he  replied. 

20 


"LE  BRAVE  BELGE!"  21 

When  he  had  my  opinion  he  exclaimed: 

"  You  have  mentioned  them  all  except  the  Belgian 
army.     I  thought  It  was  the  bravest  and  best  of  all." 

"  Is  that  what  they  think  at  home?  "  I  asked. 

"  Yes,  of  course." 

"  The  Atlantic  Is  broad,"  I  suggested. 

This  man  of  affairs,  an  exponent  of  the  efficiency  of 
business,  was  a  sentimentalist  when  It  came  to  war, 
as  Anglo-Saxons  usually  are.  The  side  which  they 
favour  —  that  Is  the  efficient  side.  When  I  ventured 
to  suggest  that  the  Belgian  army,  In  a  professional 
sense,  was  hardly  to  be  considered  as  an  army,  it  was 
clear  that  he  had  ceased  to  associate  my  experience 
with  any  real  knowledge. 

In  business  he  was  one  who  saw  his  rivals,  their  abil- 
ities, the  organisation  of  their  concerns,  and  their  re- 
sources of  competition  with  a  clear  eye.  He  could  say 
of  his  best  personal  friend :  *'  I  like  him,  but  he  has  a 
poor  head  for  affairs."  Yet  he  was  the  type  who,  if 
he  had  been  a  trained  soldier,  would  have  been  a  busi- 
ness man  of  war,  who  would  have  wanted  a  sharp, 
ready  sword  in  a  well-trained  hand  and  to  leave  noth- 
ing to  chance  In  a  battle  for  the  right.  In  Germany, 
where  some  of  the  best  brains  of  the  country  are 
given  to  making  war  a  business,  he  might  have  been  a 
soldier  who  would  rise  to  a  position  on  the  staff.  In 
America  he  was  the  employer  of  three  thousand  men 
'■ —  a  general  of  civil  life. 

"  But  look  how  the  Belgians  have  fought!  "  he  ex- 
claimed. "  They  stopped  the  whole  German  army  for 
two  weeks." 

The  best  army  was  best  because  it  had  his  sympathy. 
His  view  was  the  popular  view  in  America :  the  view 
of  the  heart.     America  saw  the  pigmy  fighting  the 


22      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

giant  rather  than  let  him  pass  over  Belgian  soil.  On 
that  day  when  a  gallant  young  king  cried,  "  To  arms !  " 
all  his  people  became  gallant  to  the  imagination. 

When  I  think  of  Belgium's  part  in  the  war  I  always 
think  of  the  little  Belgian  dog,  the  shipperke,  who  lives 
on  the  canal  boats.  He  is  a  home-staying  dog,  loyal, 
affectionate,  domestic,  who  never  goes  out  on  the  tow- 
path  to  pick  quarrels  with  other  dogs;  but  let  anything 
on  two  or  four  feet  try  to  go  on  board  when  his  mas- 
ter is  away  and  he  will  fight  with  every  ounce  of 
strength  in  him.  The  King  had  the  shipperke  spirit. 
All  the  Belgians  who  had  the  shipperke  spirit  tried  to 
sink  their  teeth  in  the  calves  of  the  invader. 

One's  heart  was  with  the  Belgians  on  that  eight- 
eenth day  of  August,  19 14,  when  one  set  out  toward 
the  front  in  an  automobile  from  a  Brussels  rejoicing 
over  bulletins  of  victory,  its  streets  walled  with  bunt- 
ing; but  there  was  something  brewing  in  one's  mind 
which  was  as  treason  to  one's  desires.  Let  Brussels 
enjoy  its  flags  and  its  capture  of  German  cavalry 
patrols  while  it  might ! 

On  the  hills  back  of  Louvain  we  came  upon  some 
Belgian  troops  In  their  long,  cumbersome  coats,  dark 
silhouettes  against  the  field,  digging  shallow  trenches 
in  an  uncertain  sort  of  way.  Whether  it  was  them  or 
the  Belgian  staff  officers  hurrying  by  In  their  cars,  I 
had  the  impression  of  the  will  and  not  the  way  and  a 
parallel  of  raw  militia  In  uniforms  taken  from  grand- 
father's trunk  facing  the  trained  antagonists  of  an 
Austerlltz,  or  a  Waterloo,  or  a  Gettysburg. 

Le  brave  Beige!  The  question  on  that  day  was 
not.  Are  you  brave?  but,  Do  you  know  how  to  fight? 
Also,  Would  the  French  and  the  British  arrive  In  time 
to   help   you?     Of   a   thousand   rumours   about  the 


"LE  BRAVE  BELGE!"  23 

positions  of  the  French  and  the  British  armies,  one  was 
as  good  as  another.  All  the  observer  knew  was  that 
he  was  an  atom  in  a  motor  and  all  he  saw  for  the 
defence  of  Belgium  was  a  regiment  of  Belgians  dig- 
ging trenches.  He  need  not  have  been  in  Belgium 
before  to  realise  that  here  were  an  unwarlike  people, 
living  by  intensive  thrift  and  caution  —  a  most  domes- 
ticated civilisation  in  the  most  thickly  populated  work- 
shop in  Europe,  counting  every  blade  of  grass  and 
every  kernel  of  wheat  and  making  its  pleasures  go  a 
long  way  at  small  cost;  a  hothouse  of  a  land,  with  the 
door  about  to  be  opened  to  the  withering  blast  of  war. 

Out  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  at  Louvain,  as  our  car 
halted  by  the  cathedral  door,  came  an  elderly  French 
officer,  walking  with  a  light,  quick  step,  his  cloak 
thrown  back  over  his  shoulders,  and  hurriedly  entered 
a  car;  and  after  him  came  a  tall  British  officer,  walking 
more  slowly,  imperturbably,  as  a  man  who  meant  to 
let  nothing  disturb  him  or  beat  him  —  both  character- 
istic types  of  race.  This  was  the  break-up  of  the  last 
military  conference  held  at  Louvain,  which  had  now 
ceased  to  be  Belgian  Headquarters. 

How  little  you  knew  and  how  much  they  knew! 
The  sight  of  them  was  helpful.  One  was  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  force  of  millions  of  Frenchmen;  of  the 
army.  I  had  always  believed  in  the  French  army,  and 
have  more  reason  now  than  ever  before  to  believe  in  it. 
There  was  no  doubt  that  if  a  French  corps  and  a  Ger- 
man corps  were  set  the  task  of  marching  a  hundred 
miles  to  a  strategic  position,  the  French  would  arrive 
first  and  win  the  day  in  a  pitched  battle.  But  no  one 
knew  this  better  than  that  German  staff  whose  su- 
periority, as  von  Moltke  said,  would  always  ensure 
victory.     Was   the   French   army   ready?     Could   it 


24      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

bring  fulness  of  its  strength  into  the  first  and  perhaps 
the  deciding  shock  of  arms?  Where  was  the  French 
army? 

The  other  officer  who  came  out  of  the  Hotel  de 
Ville  was  the  representative  of  a  little  army  —  a  hand- 
ful of  regulars  —  hard  as  nails  and  ready  to  the  last 
button.  Where  was  the  British  army?  The  restau- 
rant keeper  where  we  had  luncheon  at  Louvain  —  he 
knew.  He  whispered  his  military  secret  to  me.  The 
British  army  was  toward  Antwerp,  waiting  to  crush 
the  Germans  in  the  flank  should  they  advance  on 
Brussels.  We  were  "drawing  them  on!"  Most 
cheerful,  most  confident,  mine  host !  When  I  went 
back  to  Louvain  under  German  rule  his  restaurant  was 
in  ruins. 

We  were  on  our  way  to  as  near  the  front  as  we 
would  go,  with  a  pass  which  was  written  for  us  by  a 
Belgian  reservist  in  Brussels  between  sips  of  beer 
brought  him  by  a  boy  scout.  It  was  a  unique,  a  most 
accommodating,  pass;  the  only  one  I  have  received 
from  the  Allies'  side  which  would  have  taken  me  into 
the  German  lines. 

The  front  which  we  saw  was  In  the  square  of  the 
little  town  of  Haelen,  where  some  dogs  of  a  dog  ma- 
chine gun  battery  lay  panting  in  their  traces.  A 
Belgian  officer  in  command  there  I  recollect  for  his 
passionate  repetition  of,  "Assassins!  The  barbari- 
ans !  "  which  seemed  to  choke  out  any  other  words 
whenever  he  spoke  of  the  Germans.  His  was  a  fresh, 
livid  hate,  born  of  recent  fighting.  We  could  go 
where  we  pleased,  he  said;  and  the  Germans  were 
"  out  there,"  not  far  away.  Very  tired  he  was,  ex- 
cept for  the  flash  of  hate  in  his  eyes;  as  tired  as  the 
dogs  of  the  mitrailleuse  battery. 


"LE  BRAVE  BELGE!"  25 

We  went  outside  to  see  the  scene  of  "  the  battle," 
as  it  was  called  in  the  despatches;  a  field  In  the  first 
flush  of  the  war,  where  the  headless  lances  of  Belgian 
and  German  cavalrymen  were  still  scattered  about. 
The  peasants  had  broken  off  the  lance-heads  for  the 
steel,  which  was  something  to  pay  for  the  grain  smoul- 
dering in  the  barn  which  had  been  shelled  and  burned. 

A  battle !  It  was  a  battle  because  the  reporters 
could  get  some  account  of  it  and  the  fighting  in  Alsace 
was  hidden  under  the  cloud  of  secrecy.  A  superficial 
survey  was  enough  to  show  that  it  had  been  only  a 
reconnaissance  by  the  Germans  with  some  infantry  and 
guns  as  well  as  cavalry.  Their  defeat  had  been  an  in- 
cident to  the  thrust  of  a  tiny  feeling  finger  of  the  Ger- 
man octopus  for  information.  The  scouting  of  the 
German  cavalry  patrols  here  and  there  had  the  same 
object.  Waiting  behind  hedges  or  sweeping  around 
in  the  rear  of  a  patrol  with  their  own  cavalry  when 
the  word  came  by  telephone,  the  Belgians  bagged  many 
a  German,  man  and  horse,  dead  and  alive. 

Brussels  and  London  and  New  York,  too,  thrilled 
over  these  exploits  supplied  to  eager  readers.  It  was 
the  Uhlan  week  of  the  war;  for  every  German  cavalry- 
man was  an  Uhlan,  according  to  popular  conception. 
These  Uhlans  seemed  to  have  more  temerity  than 
sense  from  the  accounts  that  one  read.  But  if  one 
out  of  a  dozen  of  these  mounted  youth,  with  horses 
fresh  and  a  trooper's  zest  in  the  first  flush  of  war,  re- 
turned to  say  that  he  had  ridden  to  such  and  such 
points  without  finding  any  signs  of  British  or  French 
forces,  he  had  paid  for  the  loss  of  the  others.  The 
Germans  had  plenty  of  cavalry.  They  used  it  as  the 
eyes  of  the  army,  in  co-operation  with  the  aerial  eyes 
of  the  planes. 


26      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

A  peasant  woman  came  out  of  the  house  beside  the 
battlefield  with  her  children  around  her;  a  flat-chested, 
thin  woman,  prematurely  old  with  toil.  "  Les  An- 
glais! ^'  she  cried  at  sight  of  us.  Seeing  that  we  had 
some  lances  in  the  car,  she  rushed  into  her  house  and 
brought  out  half  a  dozen  more.  If  the  English 
wanted  lances  they  should  have  them.  She  knew  only 
a  few  words  of  French,  not  enough  to  express  the 
question  which  she  made  understood  by  gestures.  Her 
eyes  were  burning  with  appeal  to  us  and  flashing  with 
hate  as  she  shook  her  fist  toward  the  Germans. 

When  were  the  English  coming?  All  her  trust  was 
in  the  English,  the  invincible  English,  to  save  her 
country.  Probably  the  average  European  would  have 
passed  her  by  as  an  excited  peasant  woman.  But 
pitiful  she  was  to  me,  more  pitiful  than  the  raging 
officer  and  his  dog  battery,  or  the  infantry  awkwardly 
entrenching  back  of  Louvain,  or  flag-decked  Brussels 
believing  in  victory:  one  of  the  Belgians  with  the  true 
shipperke  spirit.  She  was  shaking  her  fist  at  a  dam 
which  was  about  to  burst  in  a  flood. 

It  was  strange  to  an  American,  who  comes  from  a 
land  where  every  one  learns  a  single  language,  Eng- 
lish, that  she  and  her  ancestors,  through  centuries  of 
living  neighbour  in  a  thickly-populated  country  to  peo- 
ple who  speak  French  and  to  French  civilisation, 
should  never  have  learned  to  express  themselves  in 
any  but  their  own  tongue  —  singular,  almost  incredi- 
ble, tenacity  in  the  age  of  popular  education!  She 
would  save  the  lance  heads  and  garner  every  grain  of 
wheat;  she  economised  in  all  but  racial  animosity. 
This  racial  stubbornness  of  Europe  —  perhaps  it  keeps 
Europe  powerful  in  jealous  competition  of  race  with 
race. 


"  LE  BRAVE  BELGE ! "  27 

The  thought  that  went  home  was  that  she  did  not 
want  the  Germans  to  come;  no  Belgian  wanted  them; 
and  this  was  the  fact  decisive  in  the  scales  of  justice. 
She  said,  as  the  officer  had  said,  that  the  Germans 
were  "  out  there."  Across  the  fields  one  saw  nothing 
on  that  still  August  day;  no  sign  of  war  unless  a 
Taube  overhead,  the  first  enemy  aeroplane  I  had  seen 
in  war.  For  the  last  two  days  the  German  patrols 
had  ceased  to  come.  Liege,  we  knew,  had  fallen. 
Looking  at  the  map,  we  prayed  that  Namur  would 
hold. 

"  Out  there  "  beyond  the  quiet  fields  that  mighty 
force  which  was  to  swing  through  Belgium  in  flank 
was  massed  and  ready  to  move  when  the  German  staff 
opened  the  throttle.  A  mile  or  so  away  a  patrol  of 
Belgian  cycHsts  stopped  us  as  we  turned  toward  Brus- 
sels. They  were  dust-covered  and  weary;  the  voice 
of  their  captain  was  faint  with  fatigue.  For  over  two 
weeks  he  had  been  on  the  hunt  of  Uhlan  patrols.  An- 
other shipperke  he,  who  could  not  only  hate  but  fight 
as  best  he  knew  how. 

"  We  had  an  alarm,"  he  said.  *'  Have  you  heard 
anything?  " 

When  we  told  him  no,  he  pedalled  on  more  slowly, 
and  oh,  how  wearily!  to  the  front.  Rather  pitiful 
that,  too,  when  you  thought  of  what  was  "  out  there." 

One  had  learned  enough  to  know,  without  the  con- 
fidential information  that  he  received,  that  the  Ger- 
mans could  take  Brussels  if  they  chose.  But  the  peo- 
ple of  Brussels  still  thronged  the  streets  under  the 
blankets  of  bunting.  If  bunting  could  save  Brussels, 
it  was  in  no  danger. 

There  was  a  mockery  about  my  dinner  that  night. 
The  waiter  who  laid  the  white  cloth  on  a  marble  table 


28      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

was  unctuously  suggestive  as  to  menu.  Luscious  grapes 
and  crisp  salad,  which  Belgian  gardeners  grow  with 
meticulous  care,  I  remember  of  it.  One  might  linger 
over  his  coffee,  knowing  the  truth,  and  look  out  at  the 
people  who  did  not  know  it.  When  they  were  not 
buying  more  buttons  with  the  allied  colours,  or  more 
flags,  or  dropping  nickel  pieces  In  Red  Cross  boxes, 
they  were  thronging  to  the  kiosks  for  the  latest  edition 
of  the  evening  papers,  which  told  them  nothing. 

And  one  had  to  make  up  his  mind.  Clearly,  he  had 
only  to  keep  In  his  room  In  his  hotel  in  order  to  have 
a  great  experience.  He  might  see  the  German  troops 
enter  Belgium.  His  American  passport  would  pro- 
tect him  as  a  neutral;  Minister  Brand  Whitlock  and 
Secretary  of  Legation  Hugh  Gibson  would  get  him 
out  of  trouble. 

"Stick  to  the  army  you  are  with!"  an  eminent 
American  had  told  me. 

"  Yes,  but  I  prefer  to  choose  my  army,"  I  had  re- 
plied. 

The  army  I  chose  was  not  about  to  enter  Brussels. 
It  was  on  the  side  of  the  shipperke  dog  mitrailleuse 
battery  which  I  had  seen  In  the  streets  of  Haelen,  and 
the  peasant  woman  who  shook  her  fist  at  the  invader, 
and  all  who  had  the  shipperke  spirit. 

My  empty  appointment  as  the  representative  of  the 
American  press  with  the  British  army  was,  at  least, 
taken  seriously  by  the  policeman  at  the  War  Office  in 
London  when  I  returned  from  trips  to  France.  The 
day  came  when  It  was  good  for  British  trenches  and 
gun  positions;  when  It  was  worth  all  the  waiting,  If 
one  wished  to  see  the  drama  of  modern  war  Intimately. 


Ill 

MONS  AND   PARIS 

The  English  base  —  Stories  of  the  wounded  —  The  cataclysm  a 
reality  —  London  after  Mons  —  The  call  to  Englishmen  —  The 
"Fog  of  war" — From  Dieppe  to  Paris  —  The  red  trousers  of 
the  French  —  Empty  Paris  —  Can  the  German  machine  be  held? 
— "The  French  have  not  had  their  battle  yet!  " 

Back  from  Belgium  to  England ;  then  across  the  Chan- 
nel again  to  Boulogne,  where  I  saw  the  last  of  the 
French  garrison  march  away,  their  red  trousers  a 
throbbing  target  along  the  road.  From  Boulogne  the 
British  had  advanced  into  Belgium.  Now  their  base 
was  moved  on  to  Havre.  Boulogne,  which  two  weeks 
before  had  been  cheering  the  advent  of  "  Tommee  At- 
keens  "  singing  "  Why  should  we  be  downhearted?  " 
was  ominously  lifeless.  It  was  a  town  without  sol- 
diers, a  tawn  of  brick  and  mortar  and  pavements 
whose  very  defencelessness  was  its  security  should  the 
Germans  come. 

The  only  British  there  were  a  few  stray  wounded 
officers  and  men  who  had  found  their  way  back  from 
Mons.  They  had  no  idea  where  the  British  army 
was.  All  they  realised  were  sleepless  nights,  the 
shock  of  combat,  overpowering  artillery  fire,  and  re- 
sisting the  onslaught  of  outnumbering  masses. 

An  officer  of  Lancers,  who  had  ridden  through  the 
German  cavalry  with  his  squadron,  dwelt  on  the  glory 
of  that  moment.  What  did  his  wound  matter?  It 
had  come  with  the  burst  of  a  shell  in  a  village  street 
which  killed  his  horse  after  the  charge.     He  had  hob- 

29 


30      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

bled  away,  reached  a  railroad  train,  and  got  on  board. 
That  was  all  he  knew. 

A  Scotch  private  had  been  lying  with  his  battalion 
in  a  trench  when  a  German  aeroplane  was  sighted. 
It  had  hardly  passed  by  when  showers  of  shrapnel 
descended  and  the  Germans,  in  that  grey-green  so 
hard  to  see,  were  coming  on  as  thick  as  locusts.  Then 
the  orders  came  to  fall  back,  and  he  was  hit  as  his 
battalion  made  another  stand.  He  had  crawled  a 
mile  across  the  fields  in  the  night  with  a  bullet  in  his 
arm.  A  medical  corps  officer  told  him  to  find  any 
transportation  he  could;  and  he,  too,  was  able  to  get 
aboard  a  train.     That  was  all  he  knew. 

These  wounded  had  been  tossed  aside  into  eddies 
by  the  maelstrom  of  action.  They  were  interesting 
because  they  were  the  first  British  wounded  that  I  had 
seen;  because  the  war  was  young. 

Back  to  London  again  to  catch  the  mail  with  an 
article.  One  was  to  "  commute  "  to  the  war  from 
London  as  home.  It  was  a  base  whence  one  sallied 
forth  to  get  peeps  through  the  curtain  of  military 
secrecy  at  the  mighty  spectacle.  One  soaked  in  Eng- 
land at  intervals  and  the  war  at  intervals.  Whenever 
one  stepped  on  the  pier  at  Folkestone  it  was  with  a 
breath  of  relief,  born  of  a  sense  of  freedom  long  as- 
sociated with  fields  and  hedges  on  the  other  side  of 
the  chalk  cHfifs  which  seemed  to  make  the  sequestering 
barrier  of  the  sea  complete. 

Those  days  of  late  August  and  early  September, 
19 14,  were  gripping  days  to  the  memory.  Eager 
armies  were  pressing  forward  to  a  cataclysm  no  longer 
of  dread  imagination  but  of  reality.  That  ever  deep- 
ening and  spreading  stain  from  Switzerland  to  the 
North  Sea  was  as  yet  only  a  splash  of  fresh  blood. 


MONS  AND  PARIS  31 

One  still  wondered  If  one  might  not  wake  up  in  the 
morning  and  find  the  war  a  nightmare.  Pictures  that 
grow  clearer  with  time,  which  the  personal  memory 
chooses  for  its  own,  dissociate  themselves  from  a  back- 
ground of  detail. 

They  were  very  quiet,  this  pair  that  sat  at  the  next 
table  in  the  dining-room  of  a  London  hotel.  I  never 
spoke  to  them,  but  only  stole  discreet  glances  as  we 
all  will  in  irresistible  temptation  at  any  newly-wedded 
couple.  Neither  was  of  the  worldly  type.  One  knew 
that  to  this  young  girl  London  was  strange ;  one  knew 
the  type  of  country  home  which  had  given  her  that  sim- 
ple charm  which  cities  cannot  breed;  one  knew,  too, 
that  this  young  officer,  her  husband,  waited  for  word 
to  go  to  the  front. 

Unconsciously  she  would  play  with  her  wedding- 
ring.  She  stole  covert  glances  at  it  and  at  him,  of  the 
kind  that  bring  a  catch  in  the  throat,  when  he  was  not 
looking  at  her  —  which  he  was  most  of  the  time,  for 
reasons  which  were  good  and  sufficient  to  others  than 
himself.  Apprehended  in  "  wool-gathering,"  she 
mustered  a  smile  which  was  so  exclusively  for  him 
that  the  neighbour  felt  that  he  ought  to  be  forgiven 
his  peeps  from  the  tail  of  his  eye  at  it  because  it  was 
so  precious. 

They  would  attempt  little  flights  of  talk  about 
everything  except  the  war.  He  was  most  solicitous 
that  she  should  have  something  which  she  hked  to  eat, 
while  she  was  equally  solicitous  about  him.  Wasn't 
he  going  *'  out  there  "  ?  And  out  there  he  would  have 
to  live  on  army  fare.  It  was  all  appealing  to  the  old 
traveller.  And  then  the  next  morning  —  she  was 
alone,  after  she  had  given  him  that  precious  smile  in 
parting.     The  incident  was  one  of  the  thousands  be- 


32      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

fore  the  war  had  become  an  institution,  death  a  mat- 
ter of  routine,  and  it  was  a  commonplace  for  young 
wives  to  see  young  husbands  away  to  the  front  with  a 
smile. 

One  such  incident  does  for  all,  whether  the  war  is 
young  or  old.  There  is  nothing  else  to  tell,  even 
when  you  loiow  wife  and  husband.  I  was  rather  glad 
that  I  did  not  know  this  pair.  Then  I  should  be  look- 
ing at  the  casualty  list  in  the  newspaper  each  morning 
and  I  might  not  enjoy  my  faith  that  he  will  return 
alive.  These  two  seemed  to  me  the  best  of  England. 
I  used  to  think  of  them  when  gossip  sought  the  latest 
turn  of  intrigue  under  the  mantle  of  censorship,  when 
Parliament  poured  out  its  oral  floods  and  the  news- 
papers their  volumes  of  words.  The  man  went  off 
to  fight;  the  woman  returned  to  her  country  home.  It 
was  the  hour  of  war,  not  of  talk. 

On  that  Sunday  in  London  when  the  truth  about 
Mons  appeared  stark  to  all  England,  another  young 
man  happened  to  buy  a  special  edition  at  a  street  cor- 
ner at  the  same  time  as  myself.  By  all  criteria,  the 
world  and  his  tailor  had  treated  him  well  and  he  de- 
served well  of  the  world.  We  spoke  together  about 
the  news.  Already  the  new  democracy  which  the  war 
had  developed  was  in  evidence.  Everybody  had  com- 
mon thoughts  and  a  common  thing  at  stake,  with 
values  reckoned  in  lives,  and  this  makes  for  equality. 

"  It's  clear  that  we  have  had  a  bad  knock.  Why 
deny  it?"  he  said.  Then  he  added  quietly,  after  a 
pause:  "  This  is  a  personal  call  for  me.  I'm  going 
to  enlist." 

England's  answer  to  that  "  bad  knock  "  was  out  of 
her  experience.  She  had  never  won  at  first,  but  she 
had  always  won  in  the  end;  she  had  won  the  last  bat- 


MONS  AND  PARIS  33 

tie.  The  next  day's  news  was  worse  and  the  next 
day's  still  worse.  The  Germans  seemed  to  be  ap- 
proaching Paris  by  forced  marches.  Paris  might  fall 
—  no  matter !  Though  the  French  army  were  shat- 
tered, one  heard  Englishmen  say  that  the  British 
would  create  an  army  to  wrest  victory  from  defeat. 
The  spirit  of  this  was  fine,  but  one  realised  the  enor- 
mity of  the  task;  should  the  mighty  German  machine 
crush  the  French  machine,  the  Allies  had  lost.  To  say 
so  then  was  heresy,  when  the  world  was  inclined  to 
think  poorly  of  the  French  army  and  saw  Russian  num- 
bers as  irresistible. 

The  personal  call  was  to  Paris  before  the  fate  of 
Paris  was  to  be  decided.  My  first  crossing  of  the 
Channel  had  been  to  Ostend ;  the  second,  farther  south 
to  Boulogne;  the  third  was  still  farther  south,  to 
Dieppe.  Where  next?  To  Havre!  Events  were 
moving  with  the  speed  which  had  been  foreseen  with 
myriads  of  soldiers  ready  to  be  thrown  into  battle  by 
the  quick  march  of  the  railroad  trains. 

Every  event  was  hidden  under  the  *'  fog  of  war," 
then  a  current  expression  —  meagre  official  bulletins 
which  read  like  hope  in  their  brief  lines,  while  the  im- 
agination might  read  as  it  chose  between  the  lines. 
The  marvel  was  that  any  but  troop  trains  should  run. 
All  night  in  that  third-class  coach  from  Dieppe  to 
Paris!  Tired  and  preoccupied  passengers;  every 
one's  heart  heavy;  every  one's  soul  wrenched;  every 
one  prepared  for  the  worst !  You  cared  for  no  other 
man's  views;  the  one  thing  you  wanted  was  no  bad 
news.  France  had  known  that  when  the  war  came 
it  would  be  to  the  death.  From  the  first  no  French- 
man could  have  had  any  illusions.  England  had  not 
realised  yet  that  her  fate  was  with  the  soldiers  of 


34      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

France,  or  France  that  her  fate  and  all  the  world's  was 
with  the  British  fleet. 

An  Italian  in  our  compartment  would  talk,  how- 
ever, and  he  would  keep  the  topic  down  to  red 
trousers,  and  to  the  red  trousers  of  a  French  Terri- 
torial opposite  with  an  index  finger  when  his  gesticu- 
latory  knowledge  of  the  French  language,  which  was 
excellent,  came  to  the  rescue  of  his  verbal  knowledge, 
which  was  poor.  The  Frenchman  agreed  that  red 
trousers  were  a  mistake,  but  pointed  to  the  blue  cover- 
ing which  he  had  for  his  cap  —  which  made  it  all 
right.  The  Italian  insisted  on  keeping  to  the  trou- 
sers. He  talked  red  trousers  till  the  Frenchman  got 
out  at  his  station  and  then  turned  to  me  to  confirm  his 
views  on  this  fatal  strategic  and  tactical  error  of  the 
French.  After  all,  he  was  more  pertinent  than  most 
of  the  military  experts  trying  to  write  on  the  basis  of 
the  military  bulletins.  It  was  droll  to  listen  to  this 
sartorial  discourse,  when  at  least  two  hundred  thou- 
sand men  lay  dead  and  wounded  from  that  day's  fight 
on  the  soil  of  France.  Red  trousers  were  responsible 
for  the  death  of  a  lot  of  them. 

Dawn,  early  September  dawn,  on  dew-moist  fields, 
where  the  harvests  lay  unfinished  as  the  workers,  has- 
tening to  the  call  of  war,  had  left  the  work.  Across 
Paris,  which  seemed  as  silent  as  the  fields,  to  a  hotel 
with  empty  rooms !  Five  hundred  empty  rooms,  with 
a  clock  ticking  busily  in  every  room  !  War  or  no  war, 
that  old  man  who  wound  the  clocks  was  making  his 
rounds  softly  through  the  halls  from  door  to  door. 
He  was  a  good  soldier,  who  had  heeded  Joffre's  re- 
quest that  every  one  should  go  on  with  his  day's  work. 

"They're  done!  "  said  an  American  in  the  foyer. 
"  The  French  could  not  stand  up  against  the  Germans 


MONS  AND  PARIS  35 

—  anybody  could  sec  that!  It's  too  bad,  but  the 
French  are  licked.  The  Germans  will  be  here  to- 
morrow or  the  next  day." 

I  could  not  and  would  not  believe  it.  Such  a  dis- 
aster was  against  all  one's  belief  in  the  French  army 
and  in  the  real  character  of  the  French  people.  It 
meant  that  autocracy  was  making  sport  of  democracy; 
it  meant  disaster  to  all  one's  precepts ;  a  personal  dis- 
aster. 

"  Look  at  that  interior  line  which  the  French  now 
hold.  Think  of  the  power  of  the  defensive  with 
modern  arms.  No !  The  French  have  not  had  their 
battle  yet!  "  I  said. 

And  the  British  Expeditionary  Force  was  still 
intact;  still  an  army,  with  lots  of  fight  left  in  it. 


IV 

PARIS   WAITS 

The  Paris  of  the  boulevards  a  dead  city  —  Hew  Marianne  goes  to 
war  —  The  Germans  are  coming!  —  Silence  and  darkness  — 
Moonlight  on  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  —  Trust  in  Joffre  and  in  the 
army  —  Turn  of  the  tide  —  Joffre's  communiques  more  definite 

—  Positions  regained  —  The  French  in  pursuit  —  Paris  breathes 
again  —  A  Sunday  of  relief — 'Religious  rejoicing  at  Notre  Dame 

—  Groups  in  the  cafes  —  The  American  Embassy  "mobilised  for 
war  " — "  In  spite  of  '70,  France  still  lived." 

It  was  then  that  people  were  speaking  of  Paris  as  a 
dead  city  —  a  Paris  without  theatres,  without  young 
men,  without  omnibuses,  with  the  shutters  of  its  shops 
down  and  Its  cafes  and  restaurants  In  gloomy  empti- 
ness. 

The  Paris  the  host  of  the  idler  and  the  traveller, 
the  Paris  of  the  boulevards  and  the  night  life  pro- 
vided for  the  tourist,  the  Paris  that  sparkled  and 
smiled  in  entertainment,  the  Paris  exploited  to  the 
average  American  through  Sunday  supplements  and 
the  reminiscences  of  smoking-rooms  of  transatlantic 
liners,  was  dead.  Those  who  knew  no  other  Paris 
and  conjectured  no  other  Paris  departed  as  from  the 
tomb  of  the  pleasures  which  had  been  the  passing  ex- 
travaganza of  relief  from  dull  lives  elsewhere.  The 
Parislenne  of  that  Paris  spent  t  thousand  francs  to  get 
her  pet  dog  safely  away  to  Marseilles.  Politicians 
of  a  craven  type,  who  are  the  curse  of  all  democracies, 
had  gone  to  keep  her  company,  leaving  Paris  cleaner 
than  ever  she  was  after  the  streets  had  had  their  morn- 

36 


PARIS  WAITS  37 

ing  bath  on  a  spring  day  when  the  horse  chestnuts 
were  In  bloom  and  Madame  was  arranging  her  early 
editions  on  the  table  of  her  kiosk  —  a  spiritually  clean 
Paris. 

Monsieur,  would  you  have  America  judged  by  the 
White  Way  ?  What  has  the  White  Way  to  do  with 
the  New  York  of  Seventy-second  Street  or  Harlem? 
It  serves  the  same  purpose  as  the  boulevards  of  fur- 
nishing scandalous  little  paragraphs  for  foreign  news- 
papers. Foreigners  visit  It  and  think  that  they  un- 
derstand how  Americans  live  in  Stockbrldge,  Mass., 
or  Springfield,  111.  Empty  its  hotels  and  nobody  but 
sightseers  and  people  interested  in  the  White  Way 
would  know  the  difference. 

The  other  Paris,  making  ready  to  stand  siege,  with 
the  Government  gone  to  Bordeaux  with  all  the  gold 
of  the  Bank  of  France,  with  the  enemy's  guns  audible 
in  the  suburbs  and  old  men  cutting  down  trees  and 
tearing  up  paving-stones  to  barricade  the  streets  — 
never  had  that  Paris  been  more  alive.  It  was  after 
the  death  of  the  old  and  the  birth  of  the  new  Paris 
that  an  elderly  man,  seeing  a  group  of  women  at  tea 
in  one  of  the  few  fashionable  refreshment  places  which 
were  open,  stopped  and  said: 

"  Can  you  find  nothing  better  than  that  to  do, 
ladies.  In  a  time  like  this?  " 

And  the  Latin  temperament  gave  the  world  a  sur- 
prise. Those  who  judged  France  by  her  playful  Paris 
thought  that  if  a  Frenchman  gesticulated  so  emotion- 
ally in  the  course  of  every-day  existence,  he  would  get 
overwhelmingly  excited  in  a  great  emergency.  One 
evening,  after  the  repulse  of  the  Germans  on  the 
Marne,  I  saw  two  French  reserves  dining  in  a  famous 
restaurant  where,  at  this  time  of  the  year,  four  out 


38      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  five  diners  ordinarily  would  be  foreigners  survey- 
ing one  another  in  a  study  of  Parisian  life.  They 
were  big,  rosy-cheeked  men,  country  born  and  bred, 
belonging  to  the  new  France  of  sports,  of  action,  of 
temperate  habits,  and  they  were  joking  about  dining 
there  just  as  two  sturdy  Westerners  might  about  din- 
ing in  a  deserted  Broadway.  The  foreigners  and 
demi-mondaines  were  noticeably  absent;  a  pair  of 
Frenchmen  were  in  the  place  of  the  absentees;  and 
after  their  dinner  they  smoked  their  black  briar-root 
pipes  in  that  fashionable  restaurant. 

Among  the  picture  post-cards  then  on  sale  was  one 
of  Marianne,  who  is  France,  bound  for  the  front  in 
an  aeroplane  with  a  crowing  French  cock  sitting  on 
the  brace  above  her.  Marianne  looked  as  happy  as 
if  she  were  going  to  the  races;  the  cock  as  triumphant 
as  if  he  had  a  spur  through  the  German  eagle's  throat. 
However,  there  was  little  sale  for  picture  post-cards 
or  other  trifles,  while  Paris  waited  for  the  siege. 
They  did  not  help  to  win  victories.  News  and  not 
jeux  d' esprit,  victory  and  not  wit,  was  wanted. 

For  Marianne  went  to  war  with  her  liberty  cap 
drawn  tight  over  her  brow,  a  beat  in  her  temples,  and 
her  heart  in  her  throat;  and  the  cock  had  his  head 
down  and  pointed  at  the  enemy.  She  was  relieved 
in  a  way,  as  all  Europe  was,  that  the  thing  had  come; 
at  last  an  end  of  the  straining  of  competitive  taxation 
and  preparation;  at  last  the  test.  She  had  no  chan- 
nel, as  England  had,  between  her  and  the  foe.  De- 
feat meant  the  heel  of  the  enemy  on  her  soil,  German 
sentries  in  her  streets,  submission.  Long  and  hard 
she  had  trained;  while  the  outside  world,  thinking  of 
the  Paris  of  the  boulevards,  thought  that  she  could 


PARIS  WAITS  39 

not  resist  the  Kaiser's  legions.  She  was  effeminate, 
effete.  She  was  all  right  to  run  cafes  and  make  artifi- 
cial flowers,  but  she  lacked  beef.  All  the  prestige 
was  with  her  enemy.  In  '70  all  the  prestige  had  been 
with  her.  For  there  is  no  prestige  like  military  pres- 
tige.    It  is  all  with  those  who  won  the  last  war. 

"  But  if  we  must  succumb,  let  it  be  now,"  said  the 
French. 

On,  on  —  the  German  corps  were  coming  like  some 
machine-controlled  avalanche  of  armed  men.  Every 
report  brought  them  a  little  nearer  Paris.  Ah,  mon- 
sieur, they  had  numbers,  those  Germans !  Every  Ger- 
man mother  has  many  sons;  a  French  mother  only 
one  or  two. 

How  could  one  believe  those  official  communiques 
which  kept  saying  that  the  position  of  the  French 
armies  was  favourable  and  then  admitted  that  von 
Kluck  had  advanced  another  twenty  miles?  The 
heart  of  Paris  stopped  beating.  Paris  held  its  breath. 
Perhaps  the  reason  there  was  no  panic  was  that 
Parisians  had  been  prepared  for  the  worst. 

What  silence !  The  old  men  and  women  In  the 
streets  moved  as  under  a  spell,  which  was  the  sense 
of  their  own  helplessness.  But  few  people  were 
abroad,  and  those  going  on  errands  apparently.  The 
absence  of  traffic  and  pedestrians  heightened  the  sepul- 
chral appearance  to  superficial  observation.  At  the 
windows  of  flats,  inside  the  little  shops,  and  on  by- 
streets, you  saw  waiting  faces,  every  one  with  the 
weight  of  national  grief  become  personal.  Was 
Paris  alive?  Yes,  if  Paris  is  human  and  not  bricks 
and  stone.  Every  Parisian  was  living  a  century  in  a 
week.     So,  too,  was  one  who  loved  France.     In  the 


40      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

prospect  of  Its  loss  he  realised  the  value  of  all  that 
France  stands  for,  her  genius,  her  democracy,  her 
spirit. 

One  recalled  how  German  officers  had  said  that  the 
next  war  would  be  the  end  of  France.  An  indemnity 
which  would  crush  out  her  power  of  recovery  would 
be  imposed  on  her.  Her  northern  ports  would  be 
taken.  France,  the  most  homogeneous  of  nations, 
would  be  divided  Into  separate  nationalities  —  even 
this  the  Germans  had  planned.  Those  who  read 
their  Shakespeare  in  the  language  they  learned  in 
childhood  had  no  doubt  of  England's  coming  out  of 
the  war  secure;  but  if  we  thought  which  foreign  civi- 
lisation brought  us  the  most  In  our  lives.  It  was  that 
of  France. 

What  would  the  world  be  without  French  civilisa- 
tion? To  think  of  France  dead  was  to  think  of  cells 
in  your  own  brain  that  had  gone  lifeless;  of  some- 
thing Irreparably  extinguished  to  every  man  to  whom 
civilisation  means  more  than  material  power  of  de- 
struction. The  sense  of  what  might  be  lost  appealed 
to  you  at  every  turn  in  scenes  once  merely  characteris- 
tic of  a  whole,  each  with  an  appeal  of  Its  own  now; 
in  the  types  of  people  who,  by  their  conduct  in  this 
hour  of  trial,  showed  that  Spartan  hearts  might  beat 
in  Paris  —  the  Spartan  hearts  of  the  mass  of  every- 
day, work-a-day  Parisians. 

Those  waiting  at  home  calmly  with  their  thoughts, 
in  a  France  of  apprehension,  knew  that  their  fate  was 
out  of  their  hands  in  the  hands  of  their  youth.  The 
tide  of  battle  wavering  from  Meaux  to  Verdun  might 
engulf  them;  It  might  recede;  but  Paris  would  resist 
to  the  last.  That  was  something.  She  would  resist 
in  a  manner  worthy  of  Paris;  and  one  could  live  on 


PARIS  WAITS  41 

very  little  food.  Their  fathers  had.  Every  day  that 
Paris  held  out  would  be  a  day  lost  to  the  Germans  and 
a  day  gained  for  Joffre  and  Sir  John  French  to  bring 
up  reserves. 

The  street  lamps  should  not  reveal  to  Zeppelins  or 
Taubes  the  location  of  precious  monuments.  You 
might  walk  the  length  of  the  Champs  Elysees  without 
meeting  a  vehicle  or  more  than  two  or  three  pedes- 
trians. The  avenue  was  all  your  own;  you  might 
appreciate  it  as  an  avenue  for  itself;  and  every  build- 
ing and  even  the  skyline  of  the  streets  you  might  ap- 
preciate, free  of  any  association  except  the  thought  of 
the  results  of  man's  planning  and  building.  Silent, 
deserted  Paris  by  moonlight,  without  street  lamps  — 
few  had  ever  seen  that.  Millionaire  tourists  with 
retinues  of  servants  following  them  in  automobiles 
may  never  know  this  effect;  nor  the  Parisienne  who 
paid  a  thousand  francs  to  send  her  pet  dog  to  Mar- 
seilles. 

The  moonlight  threw  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  in  ex- 
aggerated spectral  relief,  sprinkled  the  leaves  of  the 
long  rows  of  trees,  glistened  on  the  upsweep  of  the 
broad  pavements,  gleamed  on  the  Seine.  Paris  was 
majestic,  as  scornful  of  Prussian  eagles  as  the  Parthe- 
non of  Roman  eagles.  A  column  of  soldiery  march- 
ing in  triumph  under  the  Arch  might  possess  as  a  po- 
liceman possesses;  but  not  by  arms  could  they  gain 
the  quality  that  made  Paris,  any  more  than  the  Roman 
legionary  became  a  Greek  scholar  by  doing  sentry  go 
in  front  of  the  Parthenon.  Every  Parisian  felt  anew 
how  dear  Paris  was  to  him;  how  worthy  of  some  great 

^       sacrifice ! 

f-  If  New  York  were  in  danger  of  falling  to  an  enemy, 

the  splendid  length  of  Fifth  Avenue  and  the  majesty 


42      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  the  sky-scrapers  of  lower  Broadway  and  the  bay 
and  the  rivers  would  become  vivid  to  you  in  a  way 
they  never  had  before;  or  Washington,  or  San  Fran- 
cisco, or  Boston  —  or  your  own  town.  The  thing  that 
is  a  commonplace,  when  you  are  about  to  lose  it  takes 
on  a  cherished  value. 

To-morrow  the  German  guns  might  be  thundering 
in  front  of  the  fortifications.  The  communiques  from 
Joffre  became  less  frequent  and  more  laconic.  Their 
wording  was  like  some  trembling,  fateful  needle  of  a 
barometer,  pausing,  reacting  a  little,  but  going  down, 
down,  down,  indicator  of  the  heart-pressure  of  Paris, 
shrivelling  the  flesh,  tightening  the  nerves.  Already 
Paris  was  in  siege,  in  one  sense.  Her  exits  were 
guarded  against  all  who  were  not  in  uniform  and 
going  to  fight;  to  all  who  had  no  purpose  except  to  see 
what  was  passing  where  two  hundred  miles  resounded 
with  strife.  It  was  enough  to  see  Paris  itself  await- 
ing the  siege;  fighting  one  was  yet  to  see  to  repletion. 

The  situation  must  be  very  bad  or  the  Government 
would  not  have  gone  to  Bordeaux.  Alors,  one  must 
trust  the  army  and  the  army  must  trust  Joffre.  There 
is  no  trust  like  that  of  a  democracy  when  it  gives 
its  heart  to  a  cause;  the  trust  of  the  mass  in  the 
strength  of  the  mass  which  sweeps  away  the  middle- 
man of  intrigue. 

And  silence,  only  silence,  in  Paris;  the  silence  of  the 
old  men  and  the  women,  and  of  children  who  had 
ceased  to  play  and  could  not  understand.  No  one 
might  see  what  was  going  on  unless  he  carried  a  rifle. 
No  one  might  see  even  the  wounded.  Paris  was 
spared  this,  isolated  in  the  midst  of  war.  The 
wounded  were  sent  out  of  reach  of  the  Germans  in 
case  they  should  come. 


PARIS  WAITS  43 

Then  the  Indicator  stopped  falling.  It  throbbed 
upward.  The  communiques  became  more  definite; 
they  told  of  positions  regained,  and  borne  In  the  ether 
by  the  wireless  of  telepathy  was  something  which  con- 
firmed the  communiques.  At  first  Paris  was  uneasy 
with  the  news,  so  set  had  history  been  on  repeating 
Itself,  so  remorselessly  certain  had  seemed  the  Ger- 
man advance.  But  it  was  true,  true  —  the  Germans 
were  going,  with  the  French  in  pursuit,  now  twenty, 
now  thirty,  now  forty,  now  fifty,  sixty,  seventy  miles 
away  from  Paris.     Yes,  monsieur,  seventy! 

With  the  needle  rising,  did  Paris  gather  in  crowds 
and  surge  through  the  streets,  singing  and  shouting 
itself  hoarse,  as  It  ought  to  have  done  according  to  the 
popular  international  Idea?  No,  monsieur,  Paris  will 
not  riot  in  joy  In  the  presence  of  the  dead  on  the  bat- 
tlefields and  while  German  troops  are  still  within  the 
boundaries  of  France.  Paris,  which  had  been  with 
heart  standing  still  and  breathing  hard,  began  to 
breathe  regularly  again  and  the  glow  of  life  to  run 
through  Its  veins.  In  the  markets,  whither  Madame 
brought  succulent  melons,  pears,  and  grapes  with  com- 
monplace vegetables,  the  talk  of  bargaining  house- 
wives with  their  baskets  had  something  of  its  old  vi- 
vacity and  Madame  stiffened  prices  a  little,  for  there 
will  be  heavy  taxes  to  pay  for  the  war.  Children,  so 
susceptible  to  surroundings,  broke  out  of  the  quiet 
alleys  and  doorways  In  play  again. 

A  Sunday  of  relief,  with  a  radiant  September  sun 
shining,  followed  a  Sunday  of  depression.  The  old 
taxicabs  and  the  horse  vehicles  with  their  venerable 
steeds  and  drivers  too  old  for  service  at  the  front, 
exhumed  from  the  catacomb  of  the  hours  of  doubt, 
ran  up  and  down  the  Champs  filysees  with  airing  par- 


44     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ties.  At  Notre  Dame  the  religious  rejoicing  was  ex- 
pressed. A  great  service  of  prayer  was  held  by  the 
priests  who  were  not  away  fighting  for  France,  as 
three  thousand  are,  while  joyful  prayers  of  thanks 
shone  on  the  faces  of  that  democratic  people  who  have 
not  hesitated  to  discipline  the  church  as  they  have 
disciplined  their  rulers.  Groups  gathered  in  the  cafes 
or  sauntered  slowly,  talking  less  than  usual,  gesticu- 
lating little,  rolling  over  the  good  news  in  their  minds 
as  something  beyond  the  power  of  expression.  How 
banal  to  say,  "  C'est  chic,  ca!  "  or,  ^'  C'est  epatant!  " 
Language  is  for  little  things. 

That  pile  of  posters  at  the  American  Embassy  was 
already  historical  souvenirs  which  won  a  smile.  The 
name  of  every  American  resident  in  Paris  and  his  ad- 
dress had  been  filled  in  the  blank  space.  He  had  only 
to  put  up  the  warning  over  his  door  that  the  premises 
were  under  the  Embassy's  protection.  Ambassador 
Herrick,  suave,  decisive,  resourceful,  possessed  the 
gift  of  acting  in  a  great  emergency  with  the  same  ease 
and  simplicity  as  in  a  small  one,  which  is  a  gift  some- 
times found  wanting  when  a  crisis  breaks  upon  the 
routine  of  official  life. 

He  had  the  courage  to  act  and  the  ability  to  secure 
a  favour  for  an  American  when  it  was  reasonable ;  and 
the  courage  to  say  "  No  "  if  it  were  unreasonable  or 
impracticable.  No  one  of  the  throngs  who  had  busi- 
ness with  him  was  kept  long  at  the  door  in  uncertainty. 
In  its  organisation  for  facilitating  the  home-going  of 
the  thousands  of  Americans  in  Paris  and  the  Ameri- 
cans coming  to  Paris  from  other  parts  of  Europe,  the 
American  Embassy  in  Paris  seemed  as  well  mobilised 
for  its  part  in  the  war  as  the  German  army. 

In  spite  of  '70,  France  still  lived.     You  noted  the 


PARIS  WAITS  45 

faces  of  the  women  In  fresh  black  for  their  dead  at  the 
front,  a  little  drawn  but  proud  and  victorious.  The 
son  or  brother  or  husband  had  died  for  the  country. 
When  a  fast  automobile  bearing  officers  had  a  Ger- 
man helmet  or  two  displayed,  the  people  stopped  to 
look.  A  captured  German  In  the  flesh  on  a  front  seat 
beside  a  soldier  chauffeur  brought  the  knots  to  a  stand- 
still. "  Voila!  C'est  tin  Allemand!  "  ran  the  uni- 
versal exclamation.  But  Paris  soon  became  used  to 
these  stray  German  prisoners,  left-overs  from  the  Ger- 
man retreat  coming  In  from  the  fields  to  surrender. 
The  batches  went  through  by  train  without  stopping 
for  Paris,  southward  to  the  camps  where  they  were  to 
be  Interned;  and  the  trains  of  wounded  to  winter  re- 
sorts, whose  hotels  became  hospitals,  the  verandas  oc- 
cupied by  convalescents  Instead  of  gossiping  tourists. 
It  Is  tres  a  la  mode  to  be  wounded,  monsieur — ; 
tres  a  la  mode  all  over  Europe. 

And,  monsieur,  all  those  barricades  put  up  for 
nothing!  They  will  not  need  the  cattle  gathered  on 
Longchamps  race-track  and  In  the  parks  at  Versailles 
for  a  siege.  The  people  who  laid  in  stocks  of  canned 
goods  till  the  groceries  of  Paris  were  empty  of  every- 
thing in  tins  —  they  would  either  have  to  live  on 
canned  food  or  confess  that  they  were  pigs,  hein? 
Those  volunteers,  whether  young  men  who  had  been 
excused  because  they  were  only  sons  or  for  weak 
hearts  which  now  let  them  past  the  surgeons,  whether 
big,  hulking  farmers,  or  labourers,  or  stooped  clerks, 
drilling  In  awkward  squads  in  the  suburbs  till  they  are 
dizzy,  they  will  not  have  to  defend  Paris;  but,  per- 
haps, help  to  regain  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

Then  there  were  stories  going  the  rounds;  stories 
of  French  courage  and  elan  which  were  cheering  to 


46      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  ears  of  those  who  had  to  remain  at  home.  Did. 
you  hear  about  the  big  French  peasant  soldier  who 
captured  a  Prussian  eagle  in  Alsace?  They  had  him 
come  to  Paris  to  give  him  the  Legion  of  Honour  and 
the  great  men  made  a  ceremony  of  it,  gathering 
around  him  at  the  Ministry  of  War.  The  simple 
fellow  looked  from  one  to  another  of  the  group,  sur- 
prised at  all  this  attention.  It  did  not  occur  to  him 
that  he  had  done  anything  remarkable.  He  had  seen 
a  Prussian  with  a  standard  and  taken  the  standard 
away  from  that  Prussian. 

*'  If  you  like  this  so  well,"  said  that  droll  one,  "  I'll 
try  to  get  another!  " 

C'est  un  vrai  Franqais,  that  garqon.     What? 


ON   THE    HEELS   OF   VON   KLUCK 

An  excursion  to  the  front  —  The  magic  of  a  military  pass  —  The  high- 
water  mark  of  German  shells  —  Return  of  the  refugees  —  Fate 
of  the  villages  —  War's  results  —  Burying  the  dead  —  The  vic- 
torious spirit  of  France  —  Approaching  the  line  —  Roll  and  smoke 
of  the  guns  —  Passing  the  motor  transports  —  Army  organisa- 
tion—  Line  reserves  —  Newspapers  and  tobacco  —  Soissons  de- 
serted—  Stoicism  of  the  townspeople  —  German  prisoners  — 
The  Sixth  Army  headquarters  —  A  town  in  ruins  —  Character 
of  French  women  —  French  democracy  and  humanity. 

Though  the  Germans  were  going,  the  siege  by  the 
cordon  of  French  guards  around  Paris  had  not  been 
raised.  To  them  every  civilian  was  a  possible  spy. 
So  they  let  no  civilians  by.  Must  one  remain  forever 
in  Paris,  screened  from  any  view  of  the  great  drama? 
Was  there  no  way  of  securing  a  blue  card  which  would 
open  the  road  to  war  for  an  atom  of  humanity  who 
wanted  to  see  Frenchmen  in  action  and  not  to  pry  into 
generals'  plans? 

Happily,  an  army  winning  is  more  hospitable  than 
an  army  losing;  and  bonds  of  friendship  which  stretch 
around  the  world  could  be  linked  with  authority  which 
has  only  to  say  the  word  in  order  that  one  might  have 
a  day's  glimpse  of  the  fields  where  von  Kluck's  Ger- 
mans were  showing  their  heels  to  the  French. 

Ours,  I  think,  was  the  pioneer  of  the  sightseeing 
parties  which  afterward  became  the  accepted  form  of 
war  correspondence  with  the  French.  None  could 
have  been  under  more  delightful  auspices  in  compan- 
ionship or  in  the  event.     Victory  was  in  the  hearts  of 

47 


48      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

our  hosts,  who  included  M.  Paul  Doumer,  formerly 
president  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  and  governor 
of  French  Indo-China  and  now  a  senator,  and  General 
Fevrier,  of  the  French  Medical  Service,  who  was  to 
have  had  charge  of  the  sanitation  of  Paris  in  case  of 
a  siege. 

M.  Doumer  was  acting  as  Chef  de  Cabinet  to  Gen- 
eral Gallieni,  the  commandant  of  Paris,  and  he  and 
General  Fevrier  and  two  other  officers  of  GaUieni's 
staff,  who  would  have  been  up  to  their  eyes  in  work 
if  there  had  been  a  siege,  wanted  to  see  something  of 
that  army  whose  valour  had  given  them  a  holiday. 
Why  should  not  Roberts  and  myself  come  along? 
which  is  the  pleasant  way  the  French  have  of  putting 
an  invitation. 

The  other  member  of  the  party  was  the  veteran 
European  correspondent  and  representative  of  the  As- 
sociated Press  in  Paris,  Elmer  Roberts,  who  would 
not  be  doing  his  duty  to  Melville  E.  Stone  if  he  did  not 
arrange  for  opportunities  of  this  kind.  I  was  really 
hanging  onto  Roberts's  coat-tails.  Other  men  may 
have  pubhcity  as  individuals  in  a  single  newspaper  or 
magazine,  but  the  readers  of  a  thousand  newspapers 
take  their  news  from  Paris  through  him  without  know- 
ing his  name. 

Oh,  the  magic  of  a  mlhtary  pass  and  the  compan- 
ionship of  an  officer  in  uniform!  It  separates  you 
from  the  crowd  of  millions  on  the  other  side  of  the 
blank  wall  of  military  secrecy  and  takes  you  into  the 
area  of  the  millions  in  uniform;  it  wins  a  nod  of  con- 
sent from  that  middle-aged  reservist  on  a  road  whose 
bayonet  has  the  police  power  of  milhons  of  bayonets 
in  support  of  its  authority. 

At  last  one  was  to  see;  the  measure  of  his  Impres- 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK   49 

slons  was  to  be  his  own  eyes  and  not  the  written  re- 
ports. Other  passes  I  have  had  since,  which  gave  me 
the  run  of  trenches  and  shell-fire  areas;  but  this  pass 
opened  the  first  door  to  the  war.  That  day  we  ran 
by  Meaux  and  to  Chateau  Thierry  to  Soissons  and 
back  by  Senlis  to  Paris.  We  saw  a  finger's  breadth 
of  battle  area ;  a  pin  point  of  army  front.  Only  a  ride 
along  a  broad,  fine  road  out  of  Paris,  at  first;  a  road 
which  our  cars  had  all  to  themselves.  Then  at  Claye 
we  came  to  the  high-water  mark  of  the  German  in- 
vasion. This  close  to  Paris  in  that  direction  and  no 
closer  had  the  Germans  come. 

There  was  the  field  where  the  skirmishers  had 
turned  back.  Farther  on,  the  branches  of  the  avenue 
of  trees  which  shaded  the  road  had  been  slashed  as 
if  by  a  whirlwind  of  knives,  where  the  French  soixante- 
quinze  field  guns  had  found  a  target.  Under  that 
sudden  bath  of  projectiles,  with  the  French  infantry 
pressing  forward  on  their  front,  the  German  gunners 
could  not  wait  to  take  away  the  cord  of  five-inch  shells 
which  they  had  piled  to  blaze  their  way  to  Paris,  One 
guessed  their  haste  and  *:heir  irritation.  They  were 
within  range  of  the  fortifications;  within  two  hours' 
march  of  the  suburbs  of  the  Mecca  of  forty  years  of 
preparation.  After  all  that  march  from  Belgium, 
with  no  break  in  the  programme  of  success,  the 
thunders  broke  and  lightning  flashed  out  of  the 
sky  as  Manoury's  army  rushed  upon  von  Kluck's 
flank. 

"  It  was  not  the  way  that  they  wanted  us  to  get 
the  shells,"  said  a  French  peasant,  who  was  taking  one 
of  the  shell  baskets  for  a  souvenir.  It  would  make 
an  excellent  umbrella  stand. 

For  the  French  it  had  been  the  turn  of  the  tide; 


'50      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

for  that  little  British  army  which  had  fought  its  way 
back  from  Mons  it  was  the  sweet  dream,  which  had 
kept  men  up  on  the  retreat,  come  true.  Weary  Ger- 
mans, after  a  fearful  two  weeks  of  effort,  became  the 
driven.  Weary  British  and  French  turned  drivers.  A 
hypodermic  of  victory  renewed  their  energy.  Paris 
was  at  their  back  and  the  German  backs  in  front. 
They  were  no  longer  leaving  their  dead  and  wounded 
behind  to  the  foe;  they  were  sweeping  past  the  dead 
and  wounded  of  the  foe. 

But  their  happiness,  that  of  a  winning  action,  ex- 
alted and  passionate,  had  not  the  depths  of  that  of  the 
refugees  who  had  fled  before  the  German  hosts  and 
were  returning  to  their  homes  in  the  wake  of  their 
victorious  army.  We  passed  farmers  with  children 
perched  on  top  of  carts  laden  with  household  goods 
and  drawn  by  broad-backed  farm-horses,  with  usually 
another  horse  or  a  milch  cow  tied  behind.  The  real 
power  of  France  these  peasants,  holding  fast  to  the 
acres  they  own,  with  the  fire  of  the  French  nature  un- 
der their  thrifty  conservatism.  Others  on  foot  were 
villagers  who  had  lacked  horses  or  carts  to  transport 
their  belongings.  In  the  packs  on  their  backs  were  a 
few  precious  things  which  they  had  borne  away  and 
were  now  bearing  back. 

Soon  they  would  know  what  the  Germans  had  done 
to  their  homes.  What  the  Germans  had  done  to  one 
piano  was  evident.  It  stood  in  the  yard  of  a  house 
where  grass  and  flowers  had  been  trodden  by  horses 
and  men.  In  the  sport  of  victory  the  piano  had  been 
dragged  out  of  the  little  drawing-room,  while  Fritz 
and  Hans  played  and  sang  in  the  intoxication  of  a 
Paris  gained,  a  France  In  submission.  They  did  not 
know  what  Jolifre  had  in  pickle  for  them.     It  had  all 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK  51 

gone  according  to  programme  up  to  that  moment. 
Nothing  can  stop  us  Germans !  Champagne  instead 
of  beer!  Set  the  glass  on  top  of  the  piano  and  sing! 
Haven't  we  waited  forty  years  for  this  day? 

Captured  diaries  of  German  officers,  which  reflect 
the  seventh  heaven  of  elation  suddenly  turned  into 
grim  depression,  taken  in  connection  with  what  one 
saw  on  the  battlefield,  reconstruct  the  scene  around 
that  piano.  The  cup  to  the  lips;  then  dashed  away. 
How  those  orders  to  retreat  must  have  hurt! 

The  state  of  the  refugees'  homes  all  depended  upon 
the  chances  of  war.  War's  lightning  might  have  hit 
your  roof  tree  and  it  might  not.  It  plays  no  favour- 
ites between  the  honest  and  the  dishonest;  the  thrifty 
and  the  shiftless.  We  passed  villages  which  exhib- 
ited no  signs  of  destruction  or  of  looting.  The  Ger- 
man troops  had  marched  through  in  the  advance  and 
In  the  retreat  without  being  billeted.  A  hurrying 
army  with  another  on  its  heels  has  no  time  for  looting. 
Other  villages  had  been  points  of  topical  Importance; 
they  had  been  in  the  midst  of  a  fight.  General  Mau- 
vaise  Chance  had  it  in  for  them.  Shells  had  wrecked 
some  houses;  others  were  burned.  Where  a  German 
non-commissioned  officer  came  to  the  door  of  a  French 
family  and  said  that  room  must  be  made  for  German 
soldiers  in  that  house  and  if  any  one  dared  to  Interfere 
with  them  he  would  be  shot,  there  the  exhausted  hu- 
man nature  of  a  people  trained  to  think  that  ''  Krieg 
ist  Krieg  "  and  that  the  spoils  of  war  are  to  the  victor 
had  Its  way. 

It  takes  generations  to  lift  a  man  up  a  single  degree; 
but  so  swift  is  the  effect  of  war,  when  men  live  a  day 
in  a  year,  that  he  Is  demonised  in  a  month.  Before 
the  occupants  had  to  go,  often  windows  were  broken, 


52     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

crockery  smashed,  closets  and  drawers  rifled.  The 
soldiery  which  could  not  have  its  Paris  "  took  it  out " 
of  the  property  of  their  hosts.  Looting,  destruction, 
one  can  forgive  in  the  orgy  of  war  which  is  organised 
destruction;  one  can  even  understand  rapine  and 
atrocities  when  armies,  which  include  latent  vile  and 
criminal  elements,  are  aroused  to  the  kind  of  insane 
passion  which  war  arouses  in  human  beings.  But 
some  indecencies  one  could  not  understand  in  civilised 
men.  All  with  a  military  purpose,  it  is  said;  for  in 
the  nice  calculations  of  a  staff  system  which  grinds 
so  very  fine,  nothing  must  be  excluded  that  will  em- 
barrass the  enemy.  A  certain  foully  disgusting  prac- 
tice was  too  common  not  to  have  the  approval  of  at 
least  some  officers,  whose  conduct  in  several  chateaus 
includes  them  as  accomplices.  Not  all  officers,  not 
all  soldiers.  That  there  should  be  a  few  is  enough 
to  sicken  you  of  belonging  to  the  human  species. 
Nothing  worse  in  Central  America;  nothing  worse 
where  civilised  degeneracy  disgraces  savagery. 

But  do  not  think  that  destruction  for  destruction's 
sake  was  done  in  all  houses  where  German  soldiers 
were  billeted.  If  the  good  principle  was  not  suffi- 
ciently impressed,  Belgium  must  have  impressed  it;  a 
looting  army  is  a  disorderly  army.  The  soldier  has 
burden  enough  to  carry  in  heavy  marching  order  with- 
out souvenirs.  That  collector  of  the  glass  tops  of 
carafes  who  had  thirty  on  his  person  when  taken  pris- 
oner was  bound  to  be  a  laggard  in  the  retreat. 

To  their  surprise  and  relief,  returning  farmers 
found  their  big,  conical  haystacks  untouched,  though 
nothing  could  be  more  tempting  to  the  wantonness  of 
an  army  on  enemy  soil.  Strike  a  match  and  up  goes 
the  harvest !     Perhaps  the  Germans  as  they  advanced 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK  53 

had  in  mind  to  save  the  forage  for  their  own  horses, 
and  either  they  were  running  too  fast  to  stop  or  the 
staff  overlooked  the  detail  on  the  retreat. 

It  was  amazing  how  few  signs  of  battle  there  were 
in  the  open.  Occasionally  one  saw  the  hastily  made 
shelter  trenches  of  a  skirmish  line;  and  again,  the  em- 
placements for  batteries  —  hurried  field  emplacements, 
so  puny  beside  those  of  trench  warfare.  It  had  been 
open  fighting;  the  tide  of  an  army  sweeping  forward 
and  then,  pursued,  sweeping  back.  One  side  was  try- 
ing to  get  away;  the  other  to  overtake.  Here,  a  rear- 
guard made  a  determined  action  which  would  have 
had  the  character  of  a  battle  in  other  days;  there,  a 
rearguard  was  pinched  as  the  French  or  the  British 
got  around  it. 

Swift  marching  and  quick  manoeuvres  of  the  type 
which  gave  war  some  of  its  old  sport  and  zest;  the 
advance,  aU  the  while  gathering  force,  like  the  deep 
tide !  Crowds  of  men  hurrying  across  a  harvested 
wheat-field  or  a  pasture  after  all  leave  few  marks  of 
passage.  A  day's  rain  will  wash  away  the  blood 
stains  and  liven  trampled  vegetation.  Nature  hastens 
with  a  kind  of  contempt  of  man  to  repair  the  damage 
done  by  his  murderous  wrath. 

The  cyclone  past,  the  people  turned  out  to  put  things 
in  order.  Peasants  too  old  to  fight,  who  had  paid  the 
taxes  which  paid  for  the  rifles  and  guns  and  hell-fire, 
were  moving  across  the  fields  with  spades,  burying 
the  bodies  of  the  young  men  and  the  horses  that  were 
war's  victims.  Long  trenches  full  of  dead  told  where 
the  eddy  of  battle  had  been  fierce  and  the  casualties 
numerous;  scattered  mounds  of  fresh  earth  where  they 
were  light;  and  sometimes,  when  the  burying  was  un- 
finished —  well,  one  draws  the  curtain  over  scenes  like 


54     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

that  in  the  woods  at  Betz,  where  Frenchmen  died 
knowing  that  Paris  was  saved  and  Germans  died  know- 
ing that  they  had  failed  to  tnke  Paris. 

Whenever  we  halted  our  statesman,  M.  Doumer, 
was  active.  Did  we  have  difficulties  over  a  culvert 
which  had  been  hastily  mended,  he  was  out  of  the  car 
and  in  command.  Always  he  was  meeting  some  man 
whom  he  knew  and  shaking  hands  like  a  senator  at 
home.  At  one  place  a  private  soldier,  a  man  of  edu- 
cation by  his  speech,  came  running  across  the  street  at 
sight  of  him. 

"  Son  of  an  old  friend  of  mine,  from  my  town," 
said  our  statesman.  Being  a  French  private  meant 
being  any  kind  of  a  Frenchman.  All  inequalities  are 
levelled  in  the  ranks  of  a  great  conscript  army. 

Be  it  through  towns  unharmed  or  towns  that  had 
been  looted  and  shelled,  the  people  had  the  smile  of 
victory,  the  look  of  victory  in  their  eyes.  Children 
and  old  men  and  women,  the  stay-at-homes,  waved  to 
our  car  in  holiday  spirit.  The  laugh  of  a  sturdy 
young  woman  who  threw  some  flowers  into  the  ton- 
neau  as  we  passed,  in  her  tribute  to  the  uniform  of  the 
army  that  had  saved  France,  had  the  spirit  of  vic- 
torious France  —  France  after  forty  years'  waiting 
throwing  back  a  foe  that  had  two  soldiers  to  every  one 
of  hers.  All  the  land,  rich  fields  and  neat  gardens 
and  green  stretches  of  woods  in  the  fair,  rolling  land- 
scape, basked  in  victory.  Dead  the  spirit  of  any  one 
who  could  not,  for  the  time  being,  catch  the  infection 
of  it  and  feel  himself  a  Frenchman.  Far  from  the 
Paris  of  gay  show  for  the  tourist  one  seemed;  in  the 
midst  of  the  France  of  the  farms  and  the  villages 
which  had  saved  Paris  and  France. 

The  car  sped  on  over  the  hard  road.     Staff  officers 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK  55 

in  other  cars  whom  we  passed  alone  suggested  that 
there  was  war  somewhere  ahead.  Were  we  never 
going  to  reach  the  battle-line,  the  magnet  of  our  speed 
when  a  French  army  chauffeur  made  all  speed  laws 
obsolete ! 

Shooting  out  of  a  grove,  a  valley  made  a  channel 
for  sound  that  brought  to  our  ears  the  thunder  of 
guns,  the  firing  so  rapid  that  It  was  like  the  roll  of 
some  Cyclopean  snare-drum  beaten  with  sticks  the  size 
of  ship-masts.  From  the  crest  of  the  next  hill  we  had 
a  glimpse  of  an  open  sweep  of  parklike  country  to- 
ward wooded  hills.  As  far  as  we  could  see  against 
the  background  of  the  foliage  throwing  it  into  relief 
was  a  continuous  cloud  of  smoke  from  bursting  shrap- 
nel shells,  renewed  with  fresh,  soft,  blue  puffs  as  fast 
as  it  was  dissipated. 

This,  then,  was  a  battle.  No  soldiers,  no  guns  In 
sight;  only  a  diaphanous,  man-made  nimbus  against 
masses  of  autumn  green  which  was  raining  steel  hall. 
Ten  miles  of  this,  one  ,.ould  say;  and  under  it  lines 
of  men  In  blue  coats  and  red  trousers  and  green  uni- 
forms hugging  the  earth,  as  unseen  as  a  battalion  of 
ants  at  work  In  the  tall  grass.  Even  If  a  charge  swept 
across  a  field  one  would  have  been  able  to  detect  noth- 
ing except  moving  pin-points  on  a  carpet. 

There  was  hard  fighting;  a  lot  of  French  and  Ger- 
mans were  being  killed  In  the  direction  of  Complegne 
and  Noyon  to-day.  Another  dip  Into  another  valley 
and  the  thir-r-r  of  a  rapid-firer  and  the  muffled  firing 
of  a  line  of  Infantry  were  audible.  Yes,  we  were  get- 
ting up  with  the  army,  with  one  tiny  section  of  It  op- 
erating along  the  road  we  were  on.  Multiply  this  by 
a  thousand  and  you  have  the  whole. 

Ahead  was  the  army's  stomach  on  wheels;  a  pro- 


156      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

cession  of  big  motor  transport  trucks  keeping  their 
intervals  of  distance  with  the  precision  of  a  battleship 
fleet  at  sea.  We  should  have  known  that  they  belonged 
to  the  army  by  the  deafness  of  the  drivers  to  appeals 
to  let  us  pass.  All  army  transports  are  like  that. 
What  the  deuced  right  has  anybody  to  pass?  They 
are  the  transport,  and  only  fighting  men  belong  in 
front  of  them.  Our  automobile  in  trying  to  go  by  to 
one  side  got  stuck  in  a  rut  that  an  American  car,  built 
for  bad  roads,  would  have  made  nothing  of;  which 
proves  again  how  clearly  European  armies  are  tied 
to  their  fine  roads.  We  got  out,  and  here  was  our 
statesman  putting  his  shoulder  to  the  wheel  again. 
That  is  the  way  of  the  French  in  war.  Everybody 
tries  to  help.  By  this  time  the  transport  chauffeurs 
also  remembered  that  they  were  Frenchmen;  and  as 
Frenchmen  are  polite  even  in  time  of  war,  they  let 
us  by. 

A  motor-cyclist  approached  with  his  hand  up. 

"  Stop  here !"  he  called. 

Those  transport  chauffeurs  who  were  deaf  to  ex- 
premiers  heard  instantly  and  obeyed.  In  front  of 
them  was  a  line  of  single  horse-drawn  carts,  with  an 
extra  horse  in  the  rear.  They  could  take  paths  that 
the  motor-trucks  could  not.  Archaic  they  seemed,  yet 
friendly,  as  a  relic  of  how  armies  were  fed  In  other 
days.  For  the  first  time  I  was  realising  what  the 
automobile  means  to  war.  It  brings  the  army  im- 
pedimenta close  up  to  the  army's  rear;  it  means  a  re- 
duction of  road  space  occupied  by  transport  by  three- 
quarters;  ease  In  keeping  pace  with  food  with  the  ad- 
vance, speed  in  falling  back  in  case  of  retreat. 

All  that  day  I  did  not  see  a  single  piece  of  French 
army  transport  broken  down.     And  this  army  had 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK     57 

Keen  fighting  for  weeks;  It  had  been  an  army  on  the 
road.  The  valuable  part  of  our  experience  was  ex- 
actly in  this:  a  glimpse  of  an  army  In  action  after  It 
had  been  through  all  the  vicissitudes  that  an  army  may 
have  in  marching  and  counter-marching  and  attack. 
Order  one  was  to  expect  afterwards  behind  the  siege 
line  of  trenches  when  there  had  been  time  to  establish 
a  routine;  organisation  and  smooth  organisation  you 
had  here  at  the  climax  of  a  month's  strain.  It  told 
the  story  of  the  character  of  the  French  army  and  the 
reasons  for  its  success  other  than  Its  co-urage.  The 
brains  were  not  all  with  the  German  Staff. 

That  winding  road,  with  a  new  picture  at  every 
turn,  now  revealed  the  town  of  Solssons  In  the  valley 
of  the  River  Aisne.  Solssons  was  ours,  we  knew, 
since  yesterday.  How  much  farther  had  we  gone? 
Was  our  advance  still  continuing?  For  then,  the  win- 
ter trench-fighting  was  unforeseen  and  the  sightseers 
thought  of  the  French  army  as  following  up  success 
with  success.  Paris,  rising  from  gloom  to  optimism, 
hoped  to  see  the  Germans  put  out  of  France.  The 
appetite  for  victory  grew  after  a  week's  bulletins  which 
moved  the  flags  forward  on  the  map  every  day. 

Another  turn  and  Solssons  was  hidden  from  view 
by  a  woodland.  Here  we  came  upon  what  looked  like 
a  leisurely  family  party  of  reserves.  The  French 
army,  a  small  section  of  French  army  along  a  road! 
And  thus.  If  one  would  see  the  whole  It  must  be  in 
bits  along  the  roads  when  not  on  the  firing-line.  They 
were  sprawling  In  the  fields  In  the  genial  afternoon 
sun,  looking  as  if  they  had  no  concern  except  to  rest. 
Uniforms  dusty  and  faces  tanned  and  bearded  told 
their  story  of  the  last  month. 

The  duty  of  a  portion  of  a  force  is  always  to  wait 


'58     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

on  what  is  being  done  by  the  others  at  the  front. 
These  were  waiting  near  a  forks  which  could  take 
them  to  the  right  or  the  left,  as  the  situation  de- 
manded. At  their  rear,  their  supply  of  small  arms 
ammunition;  in  front,  caissons  of  shells  for  a  battery 
speaking  from  the  woods  near  by;  a  troop  of  cavalry 
drawn  up,  the  men  dismounted,  ready;  and  ahead  of 
them  more  reserves  ready;  everything  ready. 

This  was  where  the  general  wanted  the  body  of 
men  and  equipment  to  be,  and  here  they  were.  There 
were  no  dragging  ends  in  the  rear,  so  far  as  I  could 
see;  nobody  complaining  that  food  or  ammunition  was 
not  up ;  no  aide  looking  for  somebody  who  could  not 
be  found;  no  excited  staff  officer  rushing  about  shout- 
ing for  somebody  to  look  sharp  for  somebody  had 
made  a  mistake.  The  thing  was  unwarlike;  it  was 
like  a  particularly  well-thought-out  route  march.  Yet 
at  the  word  that  company  of  cavalry  might  be  In  the 
thick  of  it,  at  the  point  where  they  were  wanted;  the 
infantry  rushing  to  the  support  of  the  firing-line;  the 
motor  transport  facing  around  for  withdrawal,  if 
need  be.  It  was  only  a  little  way.  Indeed,  Into  the 
zone  of  death  from  the  rear  of  that  compact  column. 

Thousands  of  such  compact  bodies  on  as  many 
roads,  each  seemingly  a  force  by  Itself  and  each  a  part 
of  the  whole,  which  could  be  a  dependable  whole  only 
when  every  part  was  ready,  alert,  and  up  where  it  be- 
longed !  Nothing  can  be  left  to  chance  In  a  battle- 
line  three  hundred  miles  long.  The  general  must 
know  what  to  depend  on,  mile  by  mile,  in  his  plans. 
Millions  of  human  units  are  grouped  In  Increasingly 
larger  units,  harmonised  according  to  set  forms.  The 
most  complex  of  all  machines  is  that  of  a  vast  army, 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK  59 

which  yet  must  be  kept  most  simple.  No  unit  acts 
without  regard  to  the  others;  every  one  must  know 
how  to  do  his  part.  The  parts  of  the  machine  are 
standardised.  One  is  Hke  the  other  in  training,  uni- 
form, and  every  detail,  so  that  one  can  replace  an- 
other. Oldest  of  all  trades  this  of  war;  old  experts 
the  French.  What  one  saw  was  like  manoeuvres.  It 
must  be  like  manoeuvres  or  the  army  would  not  hold 
together.  Manoeuvres  are  to  teach  armies  coherence; 
war  tries  out  that  coherence,  which  you  may  not  have 
if  some  one  does  not  know  just  what  to  do;  if  he  is 
uncertain  in  his  role.  Haste  leads  to  confusion;  haste 
is  only  for  supreme  moments.  In  order  to  know  how 
to  hasten  when  the  hurry  call  comes,  the  mighty  or- 
ganism must  move  in  its  routine  with  the  smoothness 
of  a  well-rehearsed  play. 

Joffre  and  the  others  who  directed  the  machine  must 
know  more  than  the  mechanics  of  staff-control.  They 
must  know  the  character  of  the  man-material  in  the 
machine.  It  was  their  duty  as  real  Frenchmen  to  un- 
derstand Frenchmen,  their  verve,  their  restlessness  for 
the  offensive,  their  individualism,  their  democratic  in- 
telligence, the  value  of  their  elation,  the  drawback  of 
their  tendency  to  depression  and  to  think  for  them- 
selves. Indeed,  the  leader  must  counteract  the  faults 
of  his  people  and  make  the  most  of  their  virtues. 

Thus,  we  had  a  French  army's  historical  part  re- 
versed :  a  French  army  faUing  back  and  concentrating 
on  the  Marne  to  receive  the  enemy  blow.  Equally 
alive  to  German  racial  traits,  the  German  Staff  had 
organised  in  their  mass  offensive  the  elan  which  means 
fast  marching  and  hard  blows.  Thus,  we  found  the 
supposedly  excitable  French  digging  in  to  receive  the 


6o      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

onslaught  of  the  supposedly  phlegmatic  German. 
When  the  time  came  for  the  charge  —  ah,  you  can 
always  depend  on  a  Frenchman  to  charge ! 

Those  reserves  were  pawns  on  a  chessboard.  They 
appeared  like  it;  one  thought  that  they  realised  it. 
Their  individual  intelligence  and  democracy  had  rea- 
soned out  the  value  of  obedience  and  homogeneity, 
rather  than  accepted  the  dictum  of  any  war  lord.  Dif- 
ficult to  think  that  each  had  left  a  vacancy  at  a  family 
board;  difficult  to  think  that  they  were  not  automatons 
in  a  process  of  endless  routine  of  war;  but  not  difficult 
to  learn  that  they  were  Frenchmen  once  we  had 
thrown  our  bombs  in  the  midst  of  the  group. 

Of  old,  one  knew  the  wants  of  soldiers.  One 
needed  no  hint  of  what  was  welcome  at  the  front. 
Never  at  any  front  were  there  enough  newspapers  or 
tobacco.  Men  smoke  twice  as  much  as  usual  in  the 
strain  of  waiting  for  action,  men  who  do  not  use  to- 
bacco at  all  get  the  habit.  Ask  the  G.  A.  R.  men  who 
fought  in  our  great  war  if  this  is  not  true.  Then, 
too,  when  your  country  is  at  war,  when  back  at  home 
hands  stretch  for  every  fresh  edition  and  you  at  the 
front  know  only  what  happens  in  your  alley,  think 
what  a  newspaper  from  Paris  means  out  on  the  bat- 
tle-line seventy  miles  from  Paris.  So  I  brought  a 
bundle  of  newspapers. 

Monsieur,  the  sensation  is  beyond  even  the  French 
language  to  express  —  the  sensation  of  sitting  down 
by  the  roadside  with  this  morning's  edition  and  the 
first  cigarette  for  twenty-four  hours. 

"  C'est  epatant/  C'est  chic,  ca!  C'est  magnifique! 
Alors,  nom  de  Dieu!  Tiensf  Helas!  Voila! 
Merci,  mille  remerciements!  " — it  was  an  army  of 
Frenchmen  with  ready  words,  quick,  telling  gestures, 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK   6i 

pouring  out  their  volume  of  thanks  as  the  car  sped  by, 
and  we  tossed  out  our  newspapers  at  intervals,  so  that 
all  should  have  a  look. 

An  £.cho  de  Paris  that  fell  into  the  road  was  the 
centre  of  a  flag-rush,  which  included  an  officer.  Most 
unmilitary  —  an  officer  scrambling  at  the  same  time 
as  his  men!  In  the  name  of  the  Kaiser,  what  dis- 
cipline ! 

Then  the  car  stopped  long  enough  for  me  to  see  a 
private  give  the  paper  to  his  officer,  who  was  plainly 
sensible  of  a  loss  of  dignity,  with  the  courtesy  which 
said,  "  A  thousand  pardons,  mon  capitaine! "  and 
the  capitaine  began  reading  the  newspaper  aloud  to 
his  men.  Scores  of  human  touches  which  were 
French,  republican,  democratic! 

With  half  our  cigarettes  gone,  we  fell  in  with  some 
brown-skinned,  native  African  troops,  the  Moham- 
medan Turcos.  Their  white  teeth  gleaming,  their 
black  eyes  devilishly  eager,  they  began  climbing  onto 
the  car.  We  gave  them  all  the  cigarettes  in  sight;  but 
fortunately  our  reserve  supply  was  not  visible,  and  an 
officer's  sharp  command  saved  us  from  being  invested 
by  storm. 

As  we  came  into  Soissons  we  left  the  reserves  be- 
hind. They  were  kept  back  out  of  range  of  the  Ger- 
man shells,  making  the  town  a  dead  space  between 
them  and  the  firing-line  which  was  beyond.  When 
the  Germans  retreated  through  the  streets  the  French 
had  taken  care,  as  it  was  their  town,  to  keep  their  fire 
away  from  the  cathedral  and  the  main  square  to  the 
outskirts  and  along  the  river.  Not  so  the  German 
guns  when  the  French  infantry  passed  through.  Sois- 
sons was  not  a  German  town. 

We  alighted  from  the  car  in  a  deserted  street,  with 


62      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

all  the  shutters  of  shops  that  had  not  been  torn  down 
by  shell-fire  closed.  Soissons  was  as  silent  as  the 
grave,  within  easy  range  of  many  enemy  guns.  War 
seemed  only  for  the  time  being  in  this  valley  bottom 
shut  in  from  the  roar  of  artillery  a  few  miles  away, 
except  for  a  French  battery  which  was  firing  method- 
ically and  slowly,  its  shells  whizzing  toward  the  ridge 
back  of  the  town. 

The  next  thing  that  one  wanted  most  was  to  go  into 
that  battery  and  see  the  soixante-quinze  and  their  skil- 
ful gunners.  Our  statesman  said  that  he  would  try 
to  locate  it.  We  thought  that  it  was  in  the  direction 
of  the  river,  that  famous  Aisne  which  has  since  given 
its  name  to  the  longest  siege-line  in  history;  a  small, 
winding  stream  in  the  bottom  of  an  irregular  valley. 
Both  bridges  across  it  had  been  cut  by  the  Germans. 
If  that  battery  were  on  the  opposite  side  under  cover 
of  any  one  of  a  score  of  blots  of  foliage  we  could  not 
reach  It.  Another  shot  —  and  we  were  not  sure  that 
the  battery  was  not  on  the  other  side  of  the  town;  a 
crack  out  of  the  landscape :  this  was  modern  artillery 
fire  to  one  who  faced  it.  Apparently  the  guns  of  the 
battery  were  scattered,  according  to  the  accepted  prac- 
tice, and  from  the  central  firing-station  word  to  fire 
was  being  passed  first  to  one  gun  and  then  to  another. 

Beside  the  buttress  of  one  bridge  lay  two  still  figures 
of  Algerian  Zouaves.  These  were  fresh  dead,  fallen 
in  the  taking  of  the  town.  Only  two  men!  There 
were  dead  by  thousands  which  one  might  see  In  other 
places.  These  two  had  leaped  out  from  cover  to  dash 
forward  and  bullets  were  waiting  for  them.  They 
had  rolled  over  on  their  backs,  their  rigid  hands  still  In 
the  position  of  grasping  their  rifles  after  the  manner 
of  crouching  skirmishers. 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK     63 

Our  statesman  said  that  we  had  better  give  up  try- 
ing to  locate  the  battery;  and  one  of  the  officers  called 
a  halt  to  trying  to  go  up  to  the  firing-line  on  the  part 
of  a  personally  conducted  party,  after  we  stopped  a 
private  hurrying  back  from  the  front  on  some  errand. 
With  his  alertness,  the  easy  swing  of  his  walk,  his  light 
step,  and  that  freedom  in  spirit  and  appearance,  he 
typified  the  thing  which  the  French  call  elan.  When- 
ever one  asked  a  question  of  a  French  private  you 
could  depend  upon  a  direct  answer.  He  knew  or  he 
did  not  know.  This  definiteness,  the  result  of  military 
training,  as  well  as  the  Gallic  lucidity  of  thought,  is  not 
the  least  of  the  human  factors  in  making  an  efficient 
army,  where  every  man  and  every  unit  must  definitely 
know  his  part.  This  young  man,  you  realised,  had 
tasted  the  "  salt  of  life,"  as  Lord  Kitchener  calls  it. 
He  had  heard  the  close  sing  of  bullets;  he  had  known 
the  intoxication  of  a  charge. 

"  Does  everything  go  well?  "  M.  Doumer  asked. 

"  It  is  not  going  at  all,  now.  It  is  sticking,"  was 
the  answer.  "  Some  Germans  were  busy  up  there  in 
the  stone  quarries  while  the  others  were  falling  back. 
They  have  a  covered  trench  and  rapid-fire  gun  po- 
sitions to  sweep  a  zone  of  fire  which  they  have 
cleared." 

Famous  stone  quarries  of  Soissons,  providing  ready- 
made  dugouts  as  shelter  from  shells ! 

There  is  a  story  of  how  before  Marengo  Napoleon 
heard  a  private  saying:  "  Now  this  is  what  the  gen- 
eral ought  to  do !  "  It  was  Napoleon's  own  plan  re- 
vealed. "You  keep  still!"  he  said.  "This  army 
has  too  many  generals." 

"  They  mean  to  make  a  stand,"  the  private  went  on. 
"  It's  an  ideal  place  for  it.     There  is  no  use  of  an 


64     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

attack  in  front.  We'd  be  mowed  down  by  machine 
guns."  The  br-r-r  of  a  dozen  shots  from  a  German 
machine  gun  gave  point  to  his  conclusion.  "  Our  in- 
fantry is  hugging  what  we  have  and  entrenching. 
You  better  not  go  up.  One  has  to  know  the  way,  or 
he'll  walk  right  into  a  sharpshooter's  bullet" — instruc- 
tions that  would  have  been  applicable  a  year  later  when 
you  were  about  to  visit  a  British  trench  in  almost  the 
same  location. 

The  siege  warfare  of  the  Aisne  line  had  already 
begun.  It  was  singular  to  get  the  first  news  of  it  from 
a  private  in  Soissons  and  then  to  return  to  Paris  and 
London,  on  the  other  side  of  the  curtain  of  secrecy, 
where  the  public  thought  that  the  Allied  advance 
would  continue. 

"  Allans!  "  said  our  statesman,  and  we  went  to  the 
town  square,  where  German  guns  had  carpeted  the 
ground  with  branches  of  shade  trees  and  torn  off  the 
fronts  of  houses,  revealing  sections  of  looted  interior 
which  had  been  further  messed  by  shell-bursts.  Some 
women  and  children  and  a  crippled  man  came  out-of- 
doors  at  sight  of  us.  M.  Doumer  introduced  himself 
and  shook  hands  all  around.  They  were  glad  to  meet 
him  in  much  the  same  way  as  if  he  had  been  on  an  elec- 
tion campaign. 

"  A  German  shell  struck  there  across  the  square 
only  half  an  hour  ago,"  said  one  of  the  women. 

"  What  do  you  do  when  there  is  shelling?  "  asked 
M.  Doumer. 

"  If  it  is  bad  we  go  into  the  cellar,"  was  the  answer; 
an  answer  which  implied  that  peculiar  fearlessness  of 
women,  who  get  accustomed  to  fire  easier  than  men. 
These  were  the  fatalists  of  the  town,  who  would  not 
turn  refugee ;  helpless  to  fight,  but  grimly  staying  with 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK  65 

their  homes  and  accepting  what  came  with  an  incom- 
prehensible stoicism,  which  possibly  had  its  origin  in 
a  race-feeling  so  proud  and  bitter  that  they  would  not 
admit  that  they  could  be  afraid  of  anything  German, 
even  a  shell. 

"  And  how  did  the  Germans  act?  " 

"  They  made  themselves  at  home  in  our  houses  and 
slept  in  our  beds,  while  we  slept  in  the  kitchen,"  she 
answered.  "  They  said  if  we  kept  indoors  and  gave 
them  what  they  wanted  we  should  not  be  harmed. 
But  if  any  one  fired  a  shot  at  their  troops  or  any  arms 
were  found  in  our  houses,  they  would  burn  the  town. 
When  they  were  going  back  in  a  great  hurry  —  how 
they  scattered  from  our  shells !  We  went  out  in  the 
square  to  see  our  shells,  monsieur!  " 

What  mattered  the  ruins  of  her  home?  Our  shells 
had  returned  vengeance. 

Arrows  with  directions  In  German,  "  This  way  to 
the  river,"  "  This  way  to  Villers-Cotteret,"  were 
chalked  on  the  standing  walls;  and  on  door-casings  the 
names  of  the  detachments  of  the  Prussian  Guard  bil- 
leted there,  all  in  systematic  Teutonic  fashion. 

"  Prince  Albrecht  Joachim,  one  of  the  Kaiser's  sons, 
was  here  and  I  talked  with  him,"  said  the  Mayor,  who 
thought  we  should  enjoy  a  morsel  from  court  circles  In 
exchange  for  a  copy  of  the  Echo  de  Paris  which  con- 
tained the  news  that  Prince  Albrecht  had  been 
wounded  later.  The  mayor  looked  tired,  this  local 
man  of  the  people,  who  had  to  play  the  shepherd  of  a 
stricken  flock.  Afterwards,  they  said  that  he  deserted 
his  charge  and  a  lady,  Mme.  Macherez,  took  his  place. 
All  I  know  is  that  he  was  present  that  day;  or  at  least 
a  man  who  was  introduced  to  me  as  mayor ;  and  he  was 
French  enough  to  make  a  bon  mot  by  saying  that  he 


66     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

feared  there  was  some  fault  in  his  hospitality  because 
he  had  been  unable  to  keep  his  guest. 

"  May  I  have  this  confiture?  "  asked  a  battle-stained 
French  orderly,  coming  up  to  him.  "  I  found  it  in 
that  ruined  house  there  —  all  the  Germans  had  left. 
I  haven't  had  a  confiture  for  a  long  time  and,  monsieur, 
you  cannot  imagine  what  a  hunger  I  have  for  con- 
fitures." 

All  the  while  the  French  battery  kept  on  firing 
slowly,  then  again  rapidly,  their  cracks  trilling  off  like 
the  drum  of  knuckles  on  a  table-top.  Another  effort 
to  locate  one  of  the  guns  before  we  started  back  to 
Paris  failed.  Speeding  on,  we  had  again  a  glimpse  of 
the  landscape  toward  Noyon,  sprinkled  with  shell- 
bursts.  The  reserves  were  around  their  campfires 
making  savoury  stews  for  the  evening  meal.  They 
would  sleep  where  night  found  them  on  the  sward 
under  the  stars,  as  in  wars  of  old.  That  scene 
remains  indelible  as  one  of  many  while  the  army  was 
yet  mobile,  before  the  contest  became  one  of  the  mole 
and  of  the  beaver. 

Though  one  had  already  seen  many  German  prison- 
ers in  groups  and  convoys,  the  sight  of  two  on  the 
road  fixed  the  attention  because  of  the  surroundings 
and  the  contrast  suggested  between  French  and  Ger- 
man natures.  Both  were  young,  in  the  very  prime  of 
life,  and  both  Prussian.  One  was  dark-complexioned, 
with  a  scrubbly  beard  which  was  the  product  of  the 
war.  He  marched  with  such  rigidity  that  I  should  not 
have  been  surprised  to  see  him  break  into  a  goose-step. 
The  other  was  of  that  mild,  blue-eyed,  tow-haired  type 
from  the  Baltic  provinces,  with  the  thin  white  skin 
which  does  not  tan  but  burns.  He  was  frailer  than  the 
other  and  he  was  tired ;  oh,  how  tired !     He  would  lag 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK   67 

and  then  stiffen  back  his  shoulders  and  draw  in  his  chin 
and  force  a  trifle  more  energy  into  his  step. 

A  typical,  lively  French  soldier  was  escorting  the 
pair.  He  lool^ed  pretty  tired,  too,  but  he  was  getting 
over  the  ground  in  the  natural,  easy  way  in  which  man 
Is  meant  to  walk.  The  aboriginal  races,  who  have  a 
genius  for  long  distances  on  foot,  do  not  march  in  the 
German  fashion,  which  looks  impressive,  but  lacks 
endurance.  By  the  same  logic,  the  cayuse's  gait  is 
better  for  thirty  miles  day  in  and  day  out  than  the  high- 
stepping  carriage  horse's. 

You  could  realise  the  contempt  which  those  two 
martial  Germans  had  for  their  captor.  Four  or  five 
peasant  women  refugees  by  the  roadside  unloosened 
their  tongues  In  piercing  feminine  satire  and  upbraid- 
ing. 

"  You  are  going  to  Paris,  after  all  1  This  Is  what 
you  get  for  invading  our  country;  and  you'll  get  more 
of  It!" 

The  little  French  soldier  held  up  his  hand  to  the 
women  and  shook  his  head.  He  was  a  chivalrous  fel- 
low, with  Imagination  enough  to  appreciate  the  feel- 
ings of  an  enemy  who  has  fought  hard  and  lost.  Such 
as  he  would  fight  fair  and  hold  this  war  of  the  civilisa- 
tions up  to  something  like  the  standards  of  civilisation. 

The  very  tired  German  stiffened  up  again,  as  his 
drill  sergeant  had  taught  him,  and  both  stared  straight 
ahead,  proud  and  contemptuous,  as  their  Kaiser  would 
wish  them  to  do.  I  should  recognise  the  faces  of  these 
two  Germans  and  of  that  little  French  guard  if  I  saw 
them  ten  years  hence.  In  ten  years,  what  will  be  the 
Germans'  attitude  toward  this  war  and  their  military 
lords  ? 

It  is  not  often  that  one  has  a  senator  for  a  guide; 


68      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

and  I  never  knew  a  more  efficient  one  than  our  states- 
man. His  own  curiosity  was  the  best  possible  aid  in 
satisfying  our  own.  Having  seen  the  compactness  and 
simplicity  of  an  army  column  at  the  front,  we  were  to 
find  that  the  same  thing  applied  to  high  command.  A 
sentry  and  a  small  flag  at  the  doorway  of  a  village 
hotel:  this  was  the  headquarters  of  the  Sixth  Army, 
which  General  Manoury  had  formed  in  haste  and  flung 
at  von  Kluck  with  a  spirit  which  crowned  his  white 
hairs  with  the  audacity  of  youth.  He  was  absent,  but 
we  might  see  something  of  the  central  direction  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  in  the  course  of  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  manoeuvres  of  the  war,  before  staffs 
had  settled  down  to  office  existence  in  permanent  quar- 
ters. That  is,  we  might  see  the  little  there  was  to  see : 
a  soldier  telegrapher  in  one  bedroom,  a  soldier  type- 
writist  in  another,  officers  at  work  in  others.  One 
realised  that  they  could  pack  up  everything  and  move 
In  the  time  It  takes  to  toss  enough  clothes  into  a  bag  to 
spend  a  night  away  from  home.  Apparently,  when 
the  French  fought  they  left  red  tape  behind  with  the 
bureaucracy. 

From  his  seat  before  a  series  of  maps  on  a  sitting- 
room  table  an  officer  of  about  thirty-five  rose  to  receive 
us.  It  struck  me  that  he  exemplified  self-possessed  in- 
telligence and  definite  knowledge;  that  he  had  coolness 
and  steadiness  plus  that  acuteness  of  perception  and 
clarity  of  statement  which  are  the  gift  of  the  French. 
You  felt  sure  that  no  orders  which  left  his  hand  wasted 
any  words  or  lacked  expllcitness.  The  Staff  is  the 
brains  of  the  army,  and  he  had  brains. 

"  All  goes  well!  "  he  said,  as  If  there  were  no  more 
to  say.     All  goes  well !     He  would  say  it  when  things 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK   69 

looked  black  or  when  they  looked  bright,  and  in  a  way 
that  would  make  others  believe  it. 

Outside  the  hotel  were  no  cavalry  escorts  or  com- 
manders, no  hurrying  orderlies,  none  of  the  legendary 
physical  activity  that  is  associated  with  an  army  head- 
quarters. An  automobile  drove  up,  an  officer  got  out; 
another  officer  descended  the  stairs  to  enter  a  waiting 
car.  The  wires  carry  word  faster  than  the  cars. 
Each  subordinate  commander  was  in  his  place  along 
that  line  where  we  had  seen  the  puffs  of  smoke  against 
the  landscape,  ready  to  answer  a  question  or  obey  an 
order.  That  simplicity,  like  art  itself,  which  seems  so 
easy  is  the  most  difficult  accomplishment  of  all  in  war. 

After  dark,  in  a  drizzling  rain,  we  came  to  what 
seemed  to  be  a  town,  for  our  automobile  lamps  spread 
their  radiant  streams  over  wet  pavements.  But  these 
were  the  only  lights.  Tongues  of  loose  brick  had 
been  shot  across  the  cobblestones  and  dimly  the  jagged 
skyline  of  broken  walls  of  buildings  on  either  side 
could  be  discovered.  It  was  Senlis,  the  first  town  I 
had  seen  which  could  be  classified  as  a  town  in  ruins. 
Afterwards,  one  became  a  sort  of  specialist  in  ruins, 
comparing  the  latest  with  previous  examples  of  de- 
struction. 

Approaching  footsteps  broke  the  silence.  A  small, 
very  small,  French  soldier  —  he  was  not  more  than 
five  feet  two  —  appeared  and  we  followed  him  to  an 
ambulance  that  had  broken  down  for  want  of  gasoline. 
It  belonged  to  the  Societe  de  Femmes  de  France.  The 
little  soldier  had  put  on  a  uniform  as  a  volunteer  for 
the  only  service  his  stature  would  permit.  In  those 
days  many  volunteer  organisations  were  busy  seeking 
to  "  help."     There  was  a  kind  of  competition  among 


70      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

them  for  wounded.  This  ambulance  had  got  one  and 
was  taking  him  to  Paris,  off  the  regular  route  of  the 
wounded  who  were  being  sent  south.  The  boot-soles 
of  a  prostrate  figure  showed  out  of  the  dark  recess  of 
the  interior.  This  French  officer,  a  major,  had  been 
hit  in  the  shoulder.  He  tried  to  control  the  catch  in 
his  voice  which  belied  his  assertion  that  he  was  suffer- 
ing little  pain.  The  drizzling  rain  was  chilly.  It  was 
r.  long  way  to  Paris  yet. 

''  We  will  make  inquiries,"  said  our  kindly  general. 

A  man  who  came  out  of  the  gloom  said  that  there 
was  a  hospital  kept  by  some  Sisters  of  Charity  in  Senlis 
which  had  escaped  destruction.  The  question  was 
put  into  the  recesses  of  the  ambulance : 

"  Would  you  prefer  to  spend  the  night  here  and  go 
on  In  the  morning?  " 

*'  Yes,  monsieur,  I  —  should  —  like  —  that  —  bet- 
ter 1  "  The  tone  left  no  doubt  of  the  relief  that  the 
journey  in  a  car  with  poor  springs  was  not  to  be  con- 
tinued after  hours  of  waiting,  marooned  in  the  street 
of  a  ruined  town. 

While  the  ambulance  passed  inside  the  hospital  gate, 
I  spoke  with  an  elderly  woman  who  came  to  a  nearby 
door.  Cool  and  definite  she  was  as  a  French  soldier, 
bringing  home  the  character  of  the  women  of  France 
which  this  war  has  made  so  well-known  to  the  world. 

"  Were  you  here  during  the  fighting?  " 

"  Yes,  monsieur,  and  during  the  shelling  and  the 
burning.  The  shelling  was  not  enough.  The  Ger- 
mans said  that  some  one  fired  on  their  soldiers  —  a 
boy,  I  believe  —  so  they  set  fire  to  the  houses.  One 
could  only  look  and  hate  and  pray  as  their  soldiers 
passed  through,  looking  so  unconquerable,  making 
all  seem  so  terrible  for  France.     Was  it  to  be  '70 


ON  THE  HEELS  OF  VON  KLUCK   71 

over  again?  One's  heart  was  of  stone,  monsieur. 
Tiensf  They  came  back  faster  than  they  went.  A 
mitrailleuse  was  down  there  at  the  end  of  the  street, 
our  mitrailleuse !  The  bullets  went  cracking  by. 
They  crack,  the  bullets;  they  do  not  whistle  like  the 
stories  say.  Then  the  street  w^as  empty  of  Germans 
who  could  run.  The  dead  they  could  not  run,  nor  the 
wounded.  Then  the  French  came  up  the  street,  run- 
ning, too  —  running  after  the  Germans.  It  was  good, 
monsieur,  good,  good!  My  heart  was  not  of  stone 
then,  monsieur.  It  could  not  beat  fast  enough  for  hap- 
piness. It  was  the  heart  of  a  girl.  I  remember  it  all 
very  clearly.     I  always  shall,  monsieur." 

"  Allons!  "  said  our  statesman.  "  The  officer  is 
well  cared  for." 

The  world  seemed  normal  again  as  we  passed 
through  other  towns  unharmed  and  swept  by  the  dark 
countryside,  till  a  red  light  rose  in  our  path  and  a 
sharp  "  Qui  vive?  "  came  out  of  the  night  as  we  slowed 
down.  This  was  not  the  only  sentry  call  from  a 
French  Territorial  in  front  of  a  barricade. 

At  a  second  halt  we  found  a  chain  as  well  as  a  bar- 
ricade across  the  road.  For  a  moment  it  seemed  that 
even  the  suave  parliamentarism  of  our  statesman  or 
the  authority  of  our  general  and  our  passes  could  not 
convince  one  grizzled  reservist,  doing  his  duty  for 
France  at  the  rear  while  the  young  men  were  at  the 
front,  that  we  had  any  right  to  be  going  into  Paris  at 
that  hour  of  the  night.  The  password,  which  was 
*'  Paris,"  helped,  and  we  felt  it  a  most  appropriate 
password  as  we  came  to  the  broad  streets  of  the  city 
that  was  safe. 

There  is  a  popular  idea  that  Napoleon  was  a  super- 
genius  who  won  all  his  battles  rJone.      It  is  wrong. 


72      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

He  had  a  lot  of  Frenchmen  along  to  help.  Much  the 
same  kind  of  Frenchmen  live  to-day.  Not  until  they 
fought  again  would  the  world  believe  this.  It  seems 
that  the  excitable  Gaul,  whom  some  people  thought 
would  become  tiemoralised  in  face  of  German  organ- 
isation, merely  talks  with  his  hands.  In  a  great  crisis 
he  is  cool,  as  he  always  was.  I  like  the  French  for 
their  democracy  and  humanity.  I  like  them,  too,  for 
leaving  their  war  to  France  and  Marianne;  for  not 
dragging  in  God  as  do  the  Germans.  For  it  is  just 
possible  that  God  is  not  in  the  fight.  We  don't  know 
that  He  even  approved  of  the  war. 


VI 

AND  CALAIS  WAITS 

Calais,  the  objective  of  a  struggle  for  world  power  —  Last  reserves 
of  the  British  —  A  city  of  refugees  —  Heroic  care  of  the  wounded 
— "Life  going  on  as  usual" — The  cheerful  Belgians  —  In  a 
French  hospital  —  An  astonished  but  happy  Tommy. 

To  the  traveller,  Calais  had  been  the  symbol  of  the 
shortest  route  from  London  to  Paris,  the  shortest  spell 
of  torment  in  crossing  the  British  Channel.  It  was  a 
point  where  one  felt  infinite  relief  or  sad  physical 
anticipations.  In  the  last  days  of  November  Calais 
became  the  symbol  of  a  struggle  for  world  power. 
The  British  and  the  French  were  fighting  to  hold 
Calais;  the  Germans  to  get  it.  In  Calais  Germany 
would  have  her  foot  on  the  Atlantic  coast.  She  could 
look  across  only  twenty-two  miles  of  water  to  the  chalk 
cliffs  at  Dover.  She  would  be  as  near  her  rival  as 
twice  the  length  of  Manhattan  Island;  within  the  range 
of  a  modern  gun;  within  an  hour  by  steamer  and 
twenty  minutes  by  aeroplane. 

The  long  battle-front  from  Switzerland  to  the 
North  Sea  had  been  established.  There  was  no  get- 
ting around  the  Allied  flank;  there  had  ceased  to  be  a 
flank.  To  win  Calais,  Germany  must  crush  through 
without  any  manoeuvre  by  main  force.  From  the  cafes 
where  the  British  newspaper  men  gathered  England  re- 
ceived its  news,  which  they  gleaned  from  refugees  and 
stragglers  and  passing  officers.  They  wrote  some- 
thing every  day,  for  England  must  have  something 

72 


74     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

about  that  dizzy  head-on  wrestle  in  the  mud,  that 
writhing  line  of  changing  positions,  of  new  trenches 
rising  behind  the  old  destroyed  by  German  artillery. 
The  British  were  fighting  with  their  last  reserves  on 
the  Ypres-Armentieres  line.  The  French  divisions  to 
the  south  were  suffering  no  less  heavily,  and  beyond 
them  the  Belgians  were  trying  to  hold  the  last  strip  of 
their  land  under  Belgian  sovereignty.  Cordons  of 
guards  which  kept  back,  the  observer  from  the  struggle 
could  not  keep  back  the  truth.  Something  ominous 
was  in  the  air. 

It  was  worth  while  being  in  that  old  town  as  it 
waited  on  the  issue  in  the  late  October  rains.  Its 
fishermen  crept  out  in  the  mornings  from  the  shel- 
ter of  its  quays,  where  refugees  gathered  in  crowds 
hoping  to  get  away  by  steamer.  Like  lost  souls,  car- 
rying all  the  possessions  they  could  on  their  backs, 
these  refugees.  There  was  numbness  in  their  move- 
ments and  their  faces  were  blank  —  the  paralysis  of 
brain  from  sudden  disaster.  The  children  did  not 
cry,  but  munched  the  dry  bread  which  their  parents 
gave  them  mechanically. 

The  newspaper  men  said  that  "  refugee  stuff  "  was 
already  stale;  eviction  and  misery  were  stale.  Was 
Calais  to  be  saved?  That  was  the  only  question.  If 
the  Germans  came,  one  thought  that  Madame  at  the 
hotel  would  still  be  at  her  desk,  unruffled,  businesslike, 
and  she  would  still  serve  an  excellent  salad  for 
dejeuner;  the  fishermen  would  still  go  out  to  sea  for 
their  daily  catch. 

What  was  going  to  happen?  What  might  not  hap- 
pen? It  was  human  helplessness  to  the  last  degree 
for  all  behind  the  wrestlers.  Fate  was  in  the  battle- 
line.     There  could  be  no  resisting  that  fate.     If  the 


AND  CALAIS  WAITS  75 

Germans  came,  they  came.  Belgian  staff  officers  with 
their  high-crowned,  gilt-braided  caps  went  flying  by  in 
their  cars.  There  always  seemed  a  great  many 
Belgian  staff  officers  back  of  the  Belgian  army  in  the 
restaurants  and  cafes.  Habit  is  strong,  even  in  war. 
They  did  not  often  miss  their  dejeuners.  On  the  Dix- 
mude  line  all  that  remained  of  the  active  Belgian  Army 
was  in  a  death  struggle  in  the  rain  and  mud.  To  these 
shipperkes,  honour  without  stint,  as  to  their  gallant 
king. 

Slightly  wounded  Belgians  and  Belgian  stragglers 
roamed  the  streets  of  Calais.  Some  had  a  few  belong- 
ings wrapped  up  in  handkerchiefs.  Others  had  only 
the  clothes  on  their  backs.  Yet  they  were  cheerful; 
this  was  the  amazing  thing.  They  moved  about, 
laughing  and  chatting  in  groups.  Perhaps  this  was 
the  best  way.  Possibly  the  relief  at  being  out  of  the 
hell  at  the  front  was  the  only  emotion  they  could  feel. 
But  their  cheerfulness  was  none  the  less  a  dash  of  sun- 
light for  Calais. 

The  French  were  grim.  They  were  still  polite ; 
they  went  on  with  their  work.  No  unwounded  French 
soldiers  were  to  be  seen,  except  the  old  Territorials 
guarding  the  railroad  and  the  highways.  The  mili- 
tary organisation  of  France,  which  knew  what  war 
meant  and  had  expected  war,  had  drawn  every  man 
to  his  place  and  held  him  there  with  the  inexorable 
hand  of  military  and  racial  discipline.  Calais  had 
never  considered  caring  for  wounded,  and  the 
wounded  poured  in.  I  saw  an  automobile  with  a 
wounded  man  stop  at  a  crowded  corner,  in  the  midst 
of  refugees  and  soldiers;  a  doctor  was  leaning  over 
him,  and  he  died  while  the  car  waited. 

But  the  newspaper  men  were  saying  that  stories  of 


76      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

wounded  men  were  likewise  stale.  So  they  were,  for 
Europe  was  red  with  wounded.  Train  after  train 
brought  in  its  load  from  the  front,  and  Calais  tried  to 
care  for  them.  At  least,  it  had  buildings  v.hich  would 
give  shelter  from  the  rain.  On  the  floor  of  a  railroad 
freight  shed  the  wounded  lay  in  long  rows,  with  just 
enough  space  between  them  to  make  an  alley.  Those 
in  the  row  against  one  of  the  walls  were  German  pris- 
oners. Their  green  uniforms  melted  into  the  stone  of 
the  wall  and  did  not  show  the  mud  stains.  Two 
slightly  wounded  had  their  heads  together  whispering. 
They  were  helplessly  tired,  though  not  as  tired  as  most 
of  the  others,  those  two  stalwart  young  men;  but  they 
seemed  to  be  relieved,  almost  happy.  It  did  not  mat- 
ter what  happened  to  them,  now,  so  long  as  they  could 
rest. 

Next  to  them  a  German  was  dying,  and  others  badly 
hit  were  glassy-eyed  in  their  fatigue  and  exhaustion. 
This  was  the  word,  exhaustion,  for  all  the  wounded. 
They  had  not  the  strength  for  passion  or  emotion. 
The  fuel  for  those  fires  was  in  ashes.  All  they  wanted 
in  this  world  was  to  lie  quiet;  and  some  fell  asleep  not 
knowing  or  caring  probably  whether  they  were  in  Ger- 
many or  in  France.  In  the  other  rows,  in  contrast  with 
this  chameleon,  baffling  green,  were  the  red  trousers 
of  the  French  and  the  dark  blue  of  the  Belgian  uni- 
forms, sharing  the  democracy  of  exhaustion  with  their 
foe. 

A  misty  rain  was  falling.  In  a  bright  spot  of  light 
through  a  window  one  by  one  the  wounded  were  being 
lifted  up  on  to  a  seat,  if  they  were  not  too  badly  hit, 
and  onto  an  operating-table  if  they  were  very  badly 
hit.  A  doctor  and  a  sturdy  Frenchwoman  of  about 
thirty,  in  spotless  white,  were  in  charge.     Another 


AND  CALAIS  WAITS  77 

woman  undid  the  first-aid  bandage  and  others  applied 
a  spray.  No  time  was  lost;  there  were  too  many 
wounded  to  care  for.  The  thing  must  be  done  as  rap- 
idly as  possible  before  another  train-load  came  in.  If 
these  attendants  were  tired,  they  did  not  know  it  any 
more  than  the  wounded  had  realised  their  fatigue  in 
the  passion  of  battle.  The  improvised  arrangement  to 
meet  an  emergency  had  an  appeal  which  more  elabo- 
rate arrangements  of  organisation  which  I  had  seen 
lacked.  It  made  war  a  little  more  red;  humanity  a 
little  more  human  and  kind  and  helpless  under  the 
scourge  which  it  had  brought  on  itself. 

Though  Calais  was  not  prepared  for  wounded, 
when  they  came  the  women  of  energy  and  courage 
turned  to  the  work  without  jealousy,  without  regard 
to  red  tape,  without  fastidiousness.  I  have  in  mind 
half  a  dozen  other  women  about  the  streets  that  day  in 
uniforms  of  short  skirts  and  helmets,  who  belonged  to 
some  volunteer  organisation  which  had  taken  some 
care  as  to  its  regimentals.  They  were  types  not  char- 
acteristic of  the  whole,  of  whom  one  practical  English 
doctor  said:  "  We  don't  mind  as  long  as  they  do  not 
get  in  the  way."  Their  criticisms  of  Calais  and  the 
arrangements  were  outspoken;  nothing  was  adequate; 
conditions  were  filthy;  it  was  shameful.  They  were 
going  to  write  to  the  English  newspapers  about  it  and 
appeal  for  money.  When  they  had  organised  a 
proper  hospital,  one  should  see  how  the  thing  ought 
to  be  done.  Meantime,  these  volunteer  French- 
women were  doing  the  best  they  knew  how  and  doing 
it  now. 

A  fine-looking  young  Frenchman  who  had  a  shell- 
wound  in  the  thigh  was  being  lifted  onto  the  table. 
He  shuddered  with  pain,  as  he  clenched  his  teeth;  yet 


78      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

when  the  dressing  was  finished  he  was  able  to  breathe 
his  thanks.  On  the  seat  was  a  Congo  negro  who  had 
been  with  one  of  the  Belgian  regiments,  coal  black  and 
thick-lipped,  with  bloodshot  eyes;  an  unsensitised  hu- 
man organism,  his  face  as  expressionless  as  his  bare 
back  with  holes  made  by  shell-fragments.  A  young 
Frenchwoman  —  she  could  not  have  been  more  than 
nineteen  —  with  a  face  of  singular  refinement,  sprayed 
his  wounds  with  the  definiteness  of  one  trained  to  such 
work,  though  two  days  before  it  had  probably  never 
occurred  to  her  as  being  in  the  possibilities  of  her  ex- 
istence. Her  coolness  and  the  coolness  of  the  othei: 
women  in  their  silent  activity  had  a  charm  that  went 
with  one's  devout  respect. 

The  French  wounded,  too,  were  silent,  as  if  in  the 
presence  of  a  crisis  which  overwhelmed  their  personal 
thoughts.  Help  was  needed  at  the  front;  they  knew 
it.  On  sixty  trains  in  one  day  sixty  thousand  French 
passed  through  Calais.  With  a  pass  from  the  French 
commandant  at  Calais,  I  got  aboard  one  of  these 
trains  down  at  the  railroad  yards  at  dawn.  This  lot 
were  Turcos,  in  command  of  a  white-haired  veteran 
of  African  campaigns.  An  utter  change  of  atmos- 
phere from  the  freight  shed!  Perhaps  it  is  only  the 
wounded  who  have  time  to  think.  My  companions  in 
the  officers'  car  were  as  cheery  as  the  brown  devils 
whom  they  led.  They  had  come  from  the  trenches 
on  the  Marne,  and  their  commissariat  was  a  boiled 
ham,  some  bread  and  red  wine.  Enough  I  It  was 
war  time,  as  they  said. 

*'  We  were  in  the  Paris  railroad  yards.  That  Is  all 
we  saw  of  Paris,  and  in  the  night.     Hard  luck!  " 

They  had  left  the  Marne  the  previous  day.  By 
night  they  could  be  In  the  fight,     h  did  not  take  long 


AND  CALAIS  WAIJS  79 

to  send  reinforcements  when  the  line  was  closed  to  all 
except  military  traffic  and  one  train  followed  close  on 
the  heels  of  another. 

They  did  not  know  where  they  were  going.  One 
never  knew  where.  Probably  they  would  get  orders 
at  Dunkirk.  Father  Joffre,  when  there  was  a  call  for 
reinforcements  never  was  in  a  panicky  hurry  about  it. 
He  seemed  to  understand  that  the  general  who  made 
the  call  could  hold  out  a  little  longer;  but  the  rein- 
forcements were  always  up  on  time.  A  long  head  had 
Father  Joffre. 

Now  I  am  going  to  say  that  life  was  going  on  as 
usual  at  Dunkirk;  that  is  the  obvious  thing  to  say. 
The  nearer  the  enemy,  the  more  characteristic  that 
trite  observation  of  those  who  have  followed  the  roads 
of  war  In  Europe.  At  Dunkirk  you  might  have  a 
good  meal  within  sound  of  the  thunder  of  the  guns  of 
the  British  monitors  which  were  helping  the  Belgians 
to  hold  their  line.  At  Dunkirk  most  excellent  pastry 
was  for  sale  in  a  confectionery  shop.  Why  shouldn't 
tartmakers  go  on  making  tarts  and  selling  them? 
The  British  naval  reserve  officers  used  to  take  tea  In 
this  shop.  Little  crowds  of  citizens  who  had  nothing 
to  do,  which  is  the  most  miserable  of  vocations  in  such 
a  crisis,  gathered  to  look  at  armoured  motor  cars  which 
had  come  in  from  the  front  with  bullet  dents,  which 
^ave  them  the  atmosphere  of  battle. 

Beyond  Dunkirk,  one  might  see  wounded  Belgians 
fresh  from  the  front,  staggering  In,  crawling  In,  hob- 
bling in  from  under  the  havoc  of  shell-fire,  their  first- 
aid  bandages  saturated  with  mud,  their  ungainly  and 
impracticable  uniforms  oozing  mud,  ghosts  of  men  — 
these  shipperkes  of  the  nation  that  was  unprepared  for 
war,  who  had  done  their  part,  when  the  only  military 


8o      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

thought  was  for  more  men,  unwounded  men,  British, 
French,  Belgian,  to  stem  the  German  tide.  Yet  many 
of  these  Belgians,  even  these,  were  cheerful.  They 
could  still  smile  and  say,  "  Bonne  chance!  " 

Indeed,  there  seemed  no  limit  to  the  cheerfulness  of 
Belgians.  At  a  hospital  in  Calais  I  met  a  Belgian  pro- 
fessor with  his  head  a  white  ball  of  bandages,  showing 
a  hole  for  one  eye  and  a  slit  for  the  mouth.  He  had 
been  one  of  the  cyclist  force  which  took  account  of 
many  German  cavalry  scouts  in  the  first  two  weeks  of 
the  war.  A  staff  automobile  had  run  over  him  on  the 
road. 

"  I  think  the  driver  of  the  car  was  careless,"  he  said 
mildly,  as  if  he  were  giving  a  gentle  reproof  to  a  stu- 
dent. 

By  contrast,  he  had  reason  to  be  thankful  for  his  lot. 
Looked  after  by  a  brave  man  attendant  in  another 
room  were  the  wounded  who  were  too  horrible  to  see; 
who  must  die.  Then  in  another,  you  had  a  picture  of 
a  smiling  British  regular,  with  a  British  nurse  and  an 
Englishwoman  of  Calais  to  look  after  him.  They 
read  to  him,  they  talked  to  him,  they  vied  with  each 
other  in  rearranging  his  pillows  or  bedclothes.  He 
was  a  hero  of  a  story;  but  it  rather  puzzled  him  why 
he  should  be.  Why  were  a  lot  of  people  paying  so 
much  attention  to  him  for  doing  his  duty? 

In  the  cavalry,  he  had  been  separated  from  his  reg- 
iment on  the  retreat  from  Mons.  Wandering  about 
the  country,  he  came  up  with  a  regiment  of  cuirassiers 
and  asked  if  he  might  not  fight  with  them.  A  number 
of  the  cuirassiers  spoke  English.  They  took  him  into 
the  ranks.  The  regiment  went  far  over  on  the  Marne, 
through  towns  with  French  names  which  he  could  not 
pronounce,  this  man  in  khaki  with  the  French  troopers. 


AND  CALAIS  WAITS  8i 

He  was  marked.  C'est  iin  Anglais!  People  cheered 
him  and  threw  flowers  to  him  in  regions  which  had 
never  seen  one  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Ally  before. 

Yes,  officers  and  gentlemen  invited  him  to  dine,  like 
he  was  a  gentleman,  he  said,  and  not  a  Tommy,  and 
the  French  Government  had  given  him  a  decoration 
called  the  Legion  of  Honour  or  something  like  that. 
This  was  all  very  fine;  but  the  best  thing  was  that  his 
own  colonel,  when  he  returned,  had  him  up  before  his 
company  and  made  a  speech  to  him  for  fighting  with 
the  French  when  he  could  not  find  his  own  regiment. 
He  was  supremely  happy,  this  Tommy.  In  waiting 
Calais  one  might  witness  about  all  the  emotions  and 
contrasts  of  war  —  and  many  which  one  does  not  find 
at  the  front. 


VII 

IN   GERMANY 

The  other  side  of  the  shield  —  A  German  guard  —  A  people  organ- 
ised—  A  machine  of  psychical  force — "A  people  who  think  only 
in  the  offensive" — A  nation  trained  to  win  —  At  a  Berlin  hotel 

—  Bluffing  the  nation  into  confidence  —  A  "normal"  city  —  Of- 
ficially instilled  hate  —  England  the  cause  —  A  Red  Cross  com- 
parison—  Everything  to  win! — "Are  you  for  or  against  us?" 

—  The  German  point  of  view  —  A  hothouse  mind  trained  by  a 
diligent  paternalism  —  The  "brand  of  the  Lusitania." 

Never  had  the  war  seemed  a  more  monstrous  satire 
than  on  that  first  day  in  Germany  as  the  train  took  me 
to  Berlin.  It  was  the  other  side  of  the  wall  of  gun 
and  rifle-fire,  where  another  set  of  human  beings  were 
giving  life  in  order  to  take  life.  The  Lord  had  fash- 
ioned them  in  the  same  pattern  on  both  sides.  Their 
children  were  born  in  the  same  way;  they  bled  from 
wounds  in  the  same  way  —  but  why  go  on  in  this 
vicious  circle  of  thought?  My  impressions  of  Ger- 
many were  brief  and  the  clearer,  perhaps,  for  being 
brief  and  drawn  on  the  fresh  background  of  Paris  and 
Calais  waiting  to  know  their  fate;  of  England  staring 
across  the  Channel  in  a  suspense  which  her  phlegmatic 
nature  would  not  confess  to  learn  the  result  of  the  bat- 
tle for  the  Channel  ports;  of  England  and  France 
straining  with  all  their  strength  to  hold,  while  the  Ger- 
mans exerted  all  theirs  to  gain,  a  goal;  of  Holland, 
solid  mistress  of  her  neutrality,  fearing  for  it  and 
profiting  by  it  while  she  took  in  the  Belgian  foundlings 

82 


IN  GERMANY  83 

dropped  on  her  steps  —  Holland,  that  little  land  at 
peace,  with  the  storms  lashing  around  her. 

The  stiff  and  soldierly  appearing  reserve  officer  with 
bristling  Kaiserian  moustache,  so  professedly  alert 
and  efficient,  who  looked  at  the  mottled  back  of  my 
passport  and  frowned  at  the  recent  visa,  " ./  /<;  Place 
de  Calais,  bon  pour  allcr  a  Dunkcrquc,  P.  O.  Lc  Chef 
d'J^tat  Major,"  but  let  me  by  without  questions  or 
fuss,  aroused  visions  of  a  frontier  stone  wall  studded 
with  bayonets. 

For  something  about  him  expressed  a  certain  char- 
acter of  downright  militancy  lacking  in  either  an 
English  or  a  French  guard.  I  could  imagine  his  con- 
tempt for  both  and  particularly  for  a  *'  sloppy,  undisci- 
plined "  American  guard,  as  he  would  have  called  one 
of  ours.  Personal  feelings  did  not  enter  into  his 
thoughts.  He  had  none;  only  national  feelings,  this 
outpost  of  the  national  organism.  The  mood  of  the 
moment  was  friendliness  to  Americans.  Germany 
wished  to  create  the  impression  on  the  outside  world 
through  the  agency  of  the  neutral  press  that  she  was 
in  danger  of  starving,  while  she  amassed  munitions  for 
her  summer  campaign  and  the  Allies  were  lulled  into 
confidence  of  siege  by  famine  rather  than  by  amis.  A 
double,  a  treble  purpose  the  starving  campaign  served; 
for  it  also  ensured  economy  of  foodstuffs,  while 
nothing  so  puts  the  steel  into  a  soldier's  heart 
as  the  thought  that  the  enemy  is  trying  to  beat  him 
through  taking  the  bread  out  of  his  mouth  and  the 
mouths  of  the  women  and  children  dependent  upon 
him. 

Tears  and  laughter  and  moods  and  passions  organ- 
ised! Seventy  million  in  the  union  of  determined 
earnestness  of  a  lifc-and-dcath  issue!     Germanv  had 


84      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

studied  more  than  how  to  make  war  with  an  army. 
She  had  studied  how  the  people  at  home  should  help  an 
army  to  make  war. 

"  With  our  immense  army,  which  consists  of  all  the 
able-bodied  youth  of  the  people,"  as  a  German  officer 
said,  "  when  we  go  to  war  the  people  must  all  be  pas- 
sionate for  war.  Their  impulse  must  be  the  impulse 
of  the  army.  Their  spirit  will  drive  the  army  on. 
They  must  be  drilled,  too,  in  their  part.  No  item  in 
national  organisation  is  too  small  to  have  its  effect." 

Compared  to  the  French,  who  had  turned  grim  and 
gave  their  prayers  as  individuals  to  hearten  their 
soldiers,  the  Germans  were  as  responsive  as  a  stringed 
instrument  to  the  master  musician's  touch.  A  whis- 
per in  Berlin  was  enough  to  set  a  new  wave  of  pas- 
sion in  motion,  which  spread  to  the  trenches  east  and 
west.  Something  like  the  team  work  of  the  "  rah- 
rah  "  of  college  athletics  was  applied  to  the  nation. 
The  soft  pedal  on  this  emotion,  the  loud  on  that,  or  a 
new  cry  inaugurated  which  all  took  up,  not  with  the 
noisy,  paid  insincerity  of  a  claque,  but  with  the  vibrant 
force  of  a  trained  orchestra  with  the  brasses  predomi- 
nant. 

There  seemed  less  of  the  spontaneity  of  an  individ- 
ualistic people  than  of  the  exaltation  of  a  religious 
revival.  If  the  army  were  a  machine  of  material 
force,  then  the  people  were  a  machine  of  psychical 
force.  Though  the  thing  might  leave  the  observer 
cold,  as  a  religious  revival  leaves  the  sceptic,  yet  he 
must  admire.  I  was  told  that  I  should  succumb  to  the 
contagion  as  others  had;  but  it  was  not  the  optimism 
which  was  dinned  into  my  ears  that  affected  me  as 
much  as  side  lights. 


IN  GERMANY  85 

When  Corey  and  I  took  a  walk  away  from  a  rail- 
way station  where  I  had  to  make  a  train  connection,  I 
saw  a  German  reservist  of  forty-five,  who  was  helping 
with  one  hand  to  thresh  the  wheat  from  his  farm,  on 
a  grey,  lowering  winter  day.  The  other  hand  was  in 
a  bandage.  He  had  been  allowed  to  go  home  until  he 
was  well  enough  to  fight  again.  The  same  sort  of 
scene  I  had  witnessed  in  France;  the  wounded  man 
trying  to  make  up  to  his  family  the  loss  of  his  labour 
during  his  absence  at  the  front. 

Only,  that  man  in  France  was  on  the  defensive;  he 
was  fighting  to  hold  what  he  had  and  on  his  own  soil. 
The  German  had  been  fighting  on  the  enemy's  soil  to 
gain  more  land.  He,  too,  thought  of  it  as  the  defen- 
sive. All  Germany  insisted  that  it  was  on  the  defen- 
sive. But  it  was  the  defensive  of  a  people  who  think 
only  in  the  offensive.  That  was  it  —  that  was  the 
vital  impression  of  Germany  revealed  in  every  conver- 
sation and  every  act. 

The  Englishman  leans  back  on  his  oars;  the  German 
leans  forward.  The  Englishman's  phrase  is  "  stick 
it,"  which  means  to  hold  what  you  have;  the  Ger- 
man's phrase  is  "  onward."  It  was  national  youth 
against  national  middle  age.  A  vessel  with  pressure 
of  increase  from  within  was  about  to  expand  or 
burst.  A  vessel  which  is  large  and  comfortable 
for  its  contents  was  resisting  pressure  from  Vvith- 
out.  The  French  were  saying.  What  if  we  should 
lose?  and  the  Germans  were  saying,  What  if 
we  should  not  win  all  that  we  are  entitled  to  ?  Ger- 
many had  been  thinJdng  of  a  mightier  to-morrow  and 
England  of  a  to-morrow  as  good  as  to-day.  Germany 
looked  forward  to  a  fortune  to  be  won  at  thirty; 


86      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

England  considered  the  safeguarding  of  her  fortune 
at  fifty. 

It  Is  not  professions  that  count  so  much  as  the  thing 
that  works  out  from  the  nature  of  a  situation  and 
the  contemporaneous  bent  of  a  people.  The  English 
thought  of  his  defence  as  keeping  what  he  already  had ; 
the  German  was  defending  what  he  considered  that  he 
was  entitled  to.  If  he  could  make  more  of  Calais  than 
the  French,  then  Calais  ought  to  be  his.  A  nation  with 
the  "  closed  In  "  culture  of  the  French  on  one  side  and 
the  enormous,  unwieldy  mass  of  Russia  on  the  other, 
convinced  of  Its  superiority  and  its  ability  to  beat  either 
foe,  thought  that  It  was  the  friend  of  peace  be- 
cause it  had  withheld  the  blow.  When  the  striking 
time  came,  It  struck  hard  and  forced  the  battle  on 
enemy  soil,  which  proved,  to  its  logic,  that  It  was  only 
receiving  payment  of  a  debt  owed  it  by  destiny. 

Bred  to  win,  confident  that  the  German  system  was 
the  right  system  of  life,  it  could  imagine  the  German 
Michael  as  the  missionary  of  the  system,  converting 
the  Philistine  with  machine  guns.  Confidence,  the 
confidence  which  must  get  new  vessels  for  the  energy 
that  has  overflowed,  the  confidence  of  all  classes  In  the 
realisation  of  the  long-promised  day  of  the  "  place  in 
the  sun  "  for  all  the  Immense  population  drilled  in  the 
system,  was  the  keynote.  They  knew  that  they  could 
lick  the  other  fellow  and  went  at  him  from  the  start 
as  if  they  expected  to  lick  him,  with  a  diligence 
which  made  the  most  of  their  training  and  prepara- 
tion. 

When  I  asked  for  a  room  with  a  bath  In  a  leading 
Berlin  hotel,  the  clerk  at  the  desk  said,  "  I  will  see, 
sir."  He  ran  his  eye  up  and  down  the  list  method- 
ically before  he  added:     "  Yes,  we  have  a  good  room 


IN  GERMANY  87 

on  the  second  floor."  Afterward,  I  learned  that  all 
except  the  first  and  second  floors  of  the  hotel  were 
closed.  The  small  dining-room  only  was  open,  and 
every  effort  was  made  to  make  the  small  dining-room 
appear  normal. 

He  was  an  efficient  clerk;  the  buttons  boy  who 
opened  the  room  door,  a  goose-stepping,  alert  sprout 
of  German  militarism,  exhibited  a  punctiliousness  of 
attention  which  produced  a  further  effect  of  normality. 
Those  Germans  who  were  not  doing  their  part  at  the 
front  were  doing  it  at  home  by  bluffing  the  other  Ger- 
mans and  themselves  into  confidence.  The  clerk 
believed  that  some  day  he  would  have  more  guests  than 
ever  and  a  bigger  hotel.  All  who  suffered  from  the 
war  could  afford  to  wait.  Germany  was  winning;  the 
programme  was  being  carried  out.  The  Kaiser  said 
so.  In  proof  of  it,  multitudes  of  Russian  soldiers 
were  tilling  the  soil  in  place  of  Germans,  who  were  at 
the  front  taking  more  Russian  soldiers. 

Everybody  that  one  met  kept  telling  him  that  every- 
thing was  perfectly  normal.  No  intending  purchaser 
of  real  estate  in  a  boom  town  was  ever  treated  to  more 
optimistic  propaganda.  Perfectly  normal  —  wnen 
one  found  only  three  customers  in  a  large  department 
store  !  Perfectly  normal  —  when  the  big  steamship 
offices  presented  in  their  windows  bare  blue  seas  which 
had  once  been  charted  with  the  going  and  coming  of 
German  ships!  Perfectly  normal  —  when  the  spool 
of  the  killed  and  wounded  rolled  out  by  yards  like  that 
of  a  ticker  on  a  busy  day  on  the  Stock  Exchange ! 
Perfectly  normal  —  when  women  tried  to  smile  in  the 
streets  with  eyes  which  had  plainly  been  weeping  at 
home !  Are  you  for  us  or  against  us?  The  question 
was  put  straight  to  the  stranger.     Let  him  say  that  he 


88      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

was  a  neutral  and  they  took  It  for  granted  that  he  was 
pro-Ally.     He  must  be  pro-something. 

As  Corey  and  I  returned  to  the  railway  station  after 
our  walk,  a  soldier  took  us  In  charge  and  marched  us 
to  the  office  of  the  military  commandant.  "  Are  you 
an  Englishman?"  was  his  first  question.  The  gut- 
tural military  emphasis  which  he  put  on  Englishman 
was  most  significant.  Which  brings  us  to  another  fac- 
tor in  the  psychology  of  war:  hate. 

"  If  men  are  to  fight  well,"  said  a  German  officer, 
"  It  is  necessary  that  they  hate.  They  must  be  exalted 
by  a  great  passion  when  they  charge  into  machine 
guns." 

Hate  was  officially  distilled  and  then  instilled  — 
hate  against  England,  almost  exclusively.  The  public 
rose  to  that.  If  England  had  not  come  in,  the  Ger- 
man military  plan  would  have  succeeded:  first,  the 
crushing  of  France;  then,  the  crushing  of  Russia. 
The  despised  Belgian,  that  small  boy  who  had  tripped 
the  giant  and  then  hugged  the  giant's  knees,  delaying 
him  on  the  road  to  Paris,  was  having  a  rest.  For  he 
had  been  hated  very  hard  for  a  while  with  the  hate  of 
contempt  —  that  miserable  pigmy  who  Interfered  with 
the  plans  of  the  machine. 

The  French  were  almost  popular.  The  Kaiser  had 
spoken  of  them  as  "  brave  foes."  What  quarrel 
could  France  and  Germany  have?  France  had  been 
the  dupe  of  England.  Cartoons  of  the  hairy,  barbar- 
ous Russian  and  the  futile  little  Frenchman  in  his  long 
coat,  borne  on  German  bayonets  or  pecking  at  the 
boots  of  a  giant  Michael,  were  not  In  fashion.  For 
Germany  was  then  trying  to  arrange  a  separate  peace 
with  both  France  and  Russia.     France  was  to  have 


IN  GERMANY  '89 

Alsace-Lorraine  as  the  price  of  the  arrangement. 
When  the  negotiations  fell  through  the  cartoonists 
were  free  to  make  sport  of  the  anaemic  Gaul  and  the 
untutored  Slav  again.  And  it  was  not  alone  in  Ger- 
many that  a  responsive  press  played  the  weather  vane 
to  Government  wishes.  But  in  Germany  the  machin- 
ery ran  smoothest. 

For  the  first  time  I  knew  what  it  was  to  have  a 
human  being  whom  I  had  never  seen  before  hate  me. 
At  sight  of  me  a  woman  who  had  been  a  good  Samari- 
tan, with  human  kindness  and  charity  in  her  eyes, 
turned  a  malignant  devil.  Stalwart  as  Minerva  she 
was,  a  fair-haired  German  type  of  about  thirty-five, 
square-shouldered  and  robustly  attractive  in  her  Red 
Cross  uniform.  Being  hungry  at  the  station  at  Han- 
over, I  rushed  out  of  the  train  to  get  something  to  eat, 
and  saw  some  Frankfurter  sandwiches  on  a  table  in 
front  of  me  as  I  alighted. 

My  hand  went  out  for  one,  when  I  was  conscious  of 
a  movement  and  an  exclamation  which  was  hostile, 
and  looked  up  to  see  Minerva,  as  her  hand  shot  out  to 
arrest  the  movement  of  mine,  with  a  blaze  of  hate, 
hard,  merciless  hate,  In  her  eyes,  while  her  lips  framed 
the  word,  *' Englisher!  "  If  looks  were  daggers  I 
should  have  been  pierced  through  the  heart.  Perhaps 
an  English  overcoat  accounted  for  her  error.  Cer- 
tainly I  promptly  recognised  mine  when  I  saw  that  this 
was  a  Red  Cross  buffet.  An  Englishman  had  dared 
to  try  to  buy  a  sandwich  meant  for  German  soldiers  \ 
She  might  at  least  glory  in  the  fact  that  her  majestic 
glare  had  made  me  most  uncomfortable  as  I  mur- 
mured an  apology,  which  she  received  with  a  stony 
frown. 


90      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

A  moment  later  a  soldier  approached  the  buffet.  She 
leaned  over  smiling,  as  gentle  as  she  had  been  fierce 
and  malignant  a  moment  before,  making  a  picture,  as 
she  put  some  mustard  on  a  sandwich  for  him,  which 
recalled  that  of  the  Frenchwoman  among  the 
wounded  In  the  freight  shed  at  Calais  —  a  simile 
which  would  anger  them  both. 

The  Frenchwoman,  too,  had  a  Red  Cross  uniform; 
she,  too,  expressed  the  mercy  and  gentle  ministration 
which  we  like  to  associate  with  woman.  But  there 
was  the  difference  of  the  old  culture  and  the  new;  of 
the  race  which  was  fighting  to  have  and  the  race  which 
was  fighting  to  hold.  The  tactics  which  we  call  the 
offensive  was  In  the  German  woman's,  as  In  every 
German's,  nature.  It  had  been  In  the  Frenchwoman's 
in  Napoleon's  time.  Many  racial  hates  the  war  has 
developed;  but  that  of  the  German  is  a  seventeen-Inch- 
howltzer-asphyxiatlng-gas  hate. 

If  hates  help  to  win,  why  not  hate  as  hard  as  you 
can?  Don't  you  go  to  war  to  win?  There  Is  no  use 
talking  of  sporting  rules  and  saying  that  this  and  that 
is  "not  done"  In  humane  circles  —  win!  The  Ger- 
mans meant  to  win.  Always  I  thought  of  them  as 
having  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  their  hearts, 
organised  for  victory  by  every  modern  method. 
Three  strata  of  civilisation  were  really  fighting,  per- 
haps: The  French,  with  its  inherent  individual  pa- 
triotism which  makes  a  Frenchman  always  a  French- 
man, its  philosophy  which  prevents  Increase  of  num- 
bers. Its  thrift  and  tenacity;  the  German,  with  Its 
newborn  patriotism.  Its  discovery  of  what  It  thinks 
is  the  golden  system,  its  fecundity.  Its  aggressiveness, 
its  industry.  Its  ambition;  and  the  Russian,  unformed, 
groping,  vague,  glamorous,  immense. 


IN  GERMANY  91 

The  American  Is  an  outsider  to  them  all;  come 
strange  melting-pot  product  of  many  races  which  is 
trying  to  forget  the  prejudices  and  hates  of  the  old 
and  perhaps  not  succeeding  very  well,  but  not  yet  con- 
vinced that  the  best  means  of  producing  patriotic  unity 
is  war.  After  this  and  other  experiences,  after  being 
given  a  compartment  all  to  myself  by  men  who  glanced 
at  me  with  eyes  of  hate  and  passed  on  to  another  com- 
partment which  was  already  crowded  or  stood  up  In 
the  aisle  of  the  car,  I  made  a  point  of  buying  an  Ameri- 
can flag  for  my  buttonhole. 

This  helped;  but  still  there  was  my  name,  which  be- 
longed to  an  ancestor  who  had  gone  from  England  to 
Connecticut  nearly  three  hundred  years  ago.  Palmer 
did  not  belong  to  the  Germanic  tribe.  He  must  be 
pro-  the  other  side.  He  could  not  be  a  neutral  and 
belong  to  the  human  kind  with  such  a  name.  Only 
Swenson,  or  Gansevoort,  or  Ah  Fong  could  really  be 
a  neutral;  and  even  they  were  expected  to  be  on  your 
side  secretly.  If  they  weren't  they  must  be  on  the 
other.  Are  you  for  us?  or,  Are  you  against  us?  I 
grew  weary  of  the  question  In  Germany.  If  I  had 
been  for  them  I  would  have  "  dug  in  "  and  not  told 
them.  In  France  and  England  they  asked  you  ob- 
jectively the  state  of  sentiment  In  America.  But,  pos- 
sibly, the  direct,  forcible  way  is  the  better  for  war 
purposes  when  you  mean  to  win;  for  the  Germans 
have  made  a  study  of  war.  They  are  experts  In 
war. 

However,  this  rosy-cheeked  German  boy.  In  his 
green  uniform  which  could  not  be  washed  clean  of 
all  the  stains  of  campaigning,  whom  I  met  In  the  palace 
grounds  at  Charlottenberg,  did  not  put  this  tiresome 
question  to  me.     He  was  the  only  person  I  saw  in  the 


92      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

grounds,  whose  quiet  I  had  sought  for  an  hour's  res- 
pite from  war.  One  could  be  shown  through  the 
palace  by  the  lonely  old  caretaker,  who  missed  the 
American  tourist,  without  hearing  a  guide's  monotone 
explaining  who  the  gentleman  in  the  frame  was  and 
what  he  did  and  who  painted  his  picture.  This  boy 
could  have  more  influence  in  making  me  see  the  Ger- 
man view-point  than  the  propagandist  men  in  the 
Government  ofiices  and  the  belligerent  German-Ameri- 
cans in  hotel  lobbies  —  those  German-Americans  who 
were  so  frequently  in  trouble  in  other  days  for  dis- 
obeying the  verbotens  and  then  asking  our  State  De- 
partment to  get  them  out  of  it,  now  pluming  them- 
selves over  victories  won  by  another  type  of  Ger- 
man. 

About  tv/enty-one  this  boy,  round-faced  and  blue- 
eyed,  who  saw  in  Queen  Louisa  the  most  beautiful 
heroine  of  all  history.  The  hole  in  his  blouse  which 
the  bullet  had  made  was  nicely  sewed  up  and  his  wound 
had  healed.  He  was  fighting  in  France  when  he  was 
hit;  the  name  of  the  place  he  did  not  know.  Karl, 
his  chum,  had  been  killed.  The  doctor  had  given  him 
the  bullet,  which  he  exhibited  proudly  as  if  it  were 
different  from  other  bullets,  as  it  was  to  him.  In  a 
few  days  he  must  return  to  the  front.  Perhaps  the 
war  would  be  over  soon;  he  hoped  so. 

The  French  were  brave;  but  they  hated  the  Ger- 
mans and  thought  that  they  must  make  war  on  the 
Germans,  and  they  were  a  cruel  people,  guilty  of  many 
atrocities.  So  the  Fatherland  had  fought  to  conquer 
the  enemies  who  planned  her  destruction.  A  peculiar, 
childlike  naivete  accompanied  his  intelligence,  trained 
to  run  in  certain  grooves,  v/hich  is  the  product  of  the 
German  type  of  popular  education;  that  trust  in  his 


IN  GERMANY  93 

superiors  which  comes  from  a  diligent  and  efficient 
paternalism.  He  knew  nothing  of  the  atrocities 
which  Germans  were  said  to  have  committed  in  Bel- 
gium. The  British  and  the  French  had  set  Belgium 
against  Germany  and  Germany  had  to  strike  Belgium 
for  playing  false  to  her  treaties.  But  he  did  think 
that  the  French  were  brave ;  only  misled  by  their  Gov- 
ernment. And  the  Kaiser?  His  eyes  lighted  in  a 
way  that  suggested  that  the  Kaiser  was  almost  a  god 
to  him.  He  had  heard  of  the  things  that  the  British 
said  against  the  Kaiser  and  they  made  him  want  to 
fight  for  his  Kaiser.  He  was  only  one  German  — 
but  the  one  was  millions. 

In  actual  learning  which  comes  from  schoolbooks, 
I  think  that  he  was  better  Informed  than  the  average 
Frenchman  of  his  class;  but  I  should  say  that  he  had 
thought  less;  that  his  mind  was  more  of  a  hothouse 
product  of  a  skilful  nurseryman's  hand,  who  knew  the 
value  of  training  and  feeding  and  pruning  the  plant 
if  you  were  to  make  it  yield  well.  A  kindly,  willing, 
likable  boy,  peculiarly  simple  and  unspoiled.  It  seemed 
a  pity  that  all  his  life  he  should  have  to  bear  the  brand 
of  the  Liisitania  on  his  brow;  that  event  which  history 
cannot  yet  put  in  Its  true  perspective.  Other  races 
will  think  Lusitania  when  they  meet  a  German  long 
after  the  Belgian  atrocities  are  forgotten.  It  will 
endure  to  plague  a  people  like  the  exile  of  the 
Acadlans,  the  guillotining  of  innocents  in  the  French 
Revolution,  and  the  burning  of  the  Salem  witches. 
But  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  A  German  admiral 
gave  an  order  as  a  matter  of  policy  to  make  an  im- 
pression that  his  submarine  campaign  was  succeeding 
and  to  interfere  with  the  transport  of  munitions,  and 
the  Kaiser  told  this  boy  that  it  was  right.     One  liked 


94      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

this  boy,  his  loyalty  and  his  courage;  liked  him  as  a 
human  being.  But  one  wished  that  he  might  think 
more.  Perhaps  he  will  one  of  these  days,  if  he  sur- 
vives the  war. 


VIII 

HOW   THE    KAISER    LEADS 

A  prisoners'  "show"  camp  —  Filthy  conditions  —  Scanty  fare  — 
Racial  characteristics  — "  Upholding  Britain's  dignity  " — Russian 
princes  in  disguise  —  A  blind  artist  —  A  physical  insult  —  Deadly 
monotony  of  prison  life  —  Drilling  —  Hamburg  a  dead  city  —  A 
hate  of  the  pocket  —  The  "system"  at  a  Berlin  hospital  —  Effects 
of  the  war  in  Berlin  —  At  the  Opera  —  A  plethora  of  Iron 
Crosses  —  Immanence  of  the  Kaiser  —  Imperial  propaganda  — 
The  Crown  Prince  marooned  —  Glory  to  the  Kaiser  and  von 
HIndenburg —  President  of  the  German  Corporation  —  Always 
the  offensive — "America  too  far  away!" 

Only  a  week  before  I  had  seen  the  wounded  Ger- 
mans in  the  freight  shed  at  Calais  and  all  the  prison- 
ers that  I  had  seen  elsewhere,  whether  in  ones  or  twos, 
brought  in  fresh  from  the  front  or  in  columns  under 
escort,  had  been  Germans.  The  sharpest  contrast  of 
all  in  war  which  the  neutral  may  observe  is  seeing  the 
men  of  one  army  which,  from  the  other  side,  he 
watched  march  into  battle  —  armed,  confident,  dis- 
ciplined parts  of  an  organisation,  ready  to  sweep  all 
before  them  in  a  charge  —  become  so  many  sheep,  dis- 
armed, disorganised,  rounded  up  like  vagrants  in  a 
bread-line  and  surrounded  by  a  fold  of  barbed  wire 
and  sentries.  Such  was  the  lot  of  the  nine  thousand 
British,  French,  and  Russians  whom  I  saw  at  Doberitz, 
near  Berlin.  This  was  a  show  camp,  I  was  told,  but 
it  suffices.  Conditions  at  others  might  be  worse; 
doubtless  were.  England  treated  its  prisoners  best, 
unless  my  information  from  unprejudiced  observers 
is  wrong.     But  Germany  had  enormous  numbers  of 

95 


96      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

prisoners.  A  nation  in  her  frame  of  mind  thought 
only  of  the  care  of  the  men  who  could  fight  for  her, 
not  of  those  who  had  fought  against  her. 

Then,  the  German  nature  is  one  thing  and  the 
British  another.  Crossing  the  Atlantic  on  the  Lusi- 
tania  we  had  a  German  reserve  officer  who  was  already 
on  board  when  the  evening  editions  arrived  at  the  pier 
with  news  that  England  had  declared  war  on  Ger- 
many. Naturally,  he  must  become  a  prisoner  upon 
his  arrival  at  Liverpool.  He  was  a  steadfast  Ger- 
man. When  a  wireless  report  of  the  German  repulse 
at  Liege  came,  he  would  not  believe  it.  Germany  had 
the  system  and  Germany  would  win.  But  when  he 
said,  "  I  should  rather  be  a  German  on  board  a  British 
ship  than  a  Briton  on  board  a  German  ship,  under  the 
circumstances,"  his  remark  was  significant  in  more 
ways  than  one. 

His  English  fellow-passengers  on  that  splendid 
liner  which  a  German  submarine  was  to  send  to  the 
bottom  showed  him  no  discourtesy.  They  passed  the 
time  of  day  with  him  and  seemed  to  want  to  make  his 
awkward  situation  easy.  Yet  it  was  apparent  that  he 
regarded  their  kindliness  as  a  racial  weakness.  Krieg 
ist  Krieg.     When  Germany  made  war  she  made  war. 

So  allowances  are  in  order.  One  prison  camp  was 
like  another  in  this  sense,  that  it  deprived  a  man  of  his 
liberty.  It  put  him  in  jail.  The  British  regular,  who 
is  a  soldier  by  profession,  was,  in  a  way,  in  a  separate 
class.  But  the  others  were  men  of  civil  industries  and 
settled  homes.  Except  during  their  term  in  the  army, 
they  went  to  the  shop  or  the  office  every  day,  or  tilled 
their  farms.  They  were  free;  they  had  their  work  to 
occupy  their  minds  during  the  day  and  freedom  of 
movement   when   they   came   home   in  the   evening. 


HOW  THE  KAISER  LEADS  9-^ 

They  might  read  the  news  by  their  firesides;  they 
were  normal  human  beings  in  civiHsed  surroundings. 

Here,  they  were  pacing  animals  in  a  cage,  com- 
manded by  two  field  guns,  who  might  walk  up  and 
down  and  play  games  and  go  through  the  daily  drill 
under  their  own  non-commissioned  officers.  It  was 
the  mental  stagnation  of  the  thing  that  was  appalling. 
Think  of  such  a  lot  for  a  man  used  to  action  in  civil 
life  —  and  they  call  war  action!  Think  of  a  writer, 
a  business  man,  a  lawyer,  a  doctor,  a  teacher,  reduced 
to  this  fenced-in  existence,  when  he  had  been  the  kind 
who  got  impatient  if  he  had  to  wait  for  a  train  that 
was  late!  Shut  yourself  up  in  your  own  backyard 
with  a  man  with  a  rifle  watching  you  for  twenty-four 
hours  and  see  whether,  if  you  have  the  brain  of  a 
mouse,  prison-camp  life  can  be  made  comfortable,  no 
matter  how  many  greasy  packs  of  cards  you  have. 
And  lousy,  besides !  At  times  one  had  to  laugh  over 
what  Mark  Twain  called  "  the  damfool  human  race !  " 

Inside  a  cookhouse  at  one  end  of  the  enclosure  was 
a  row  of  soup  boilers.  Outside  were  a  series  of  rail- 
ings, forming  stalls  for  the  prisoners  when  they  lined 
up  for  meals.  In  the  morning,  some  oatmeal  and 
coffee;  at  noon,  some  cabbage  soup  boiled  with 
desiccated  meal  and  some  bread;  at  night,  more  coffee 
and  bread.  How  one  thrived  on  this  fare  depended 
much  upon  how  he  liked  cabbage  soup.  The  Russians 
liked  it.     They  were  used  to  it. 

"  We  never  keep  the  waiter  late  by  tarrying  over 
our  liqueurs,"  said  a  Frenchman. 

Our  reservist  guide  had  run  away  to  America  in 
youth,  where  he  had  worked  at  anything  he  could  find 
to  do;  but  he  had  returned  to  Berlin,  where  he  had  a 
"  good  little  business  "  before  the  war.     He  was  stout 


98      MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

and  cheery,  and  he  referred  to  the  prisoners  as  "  boys." 
The  French  and  Russians  were  good  boys;  but  the 
English  were  bad  boys,  who  had  no  discipline.  He 
said  that  all  received  the  same  food  as  German  sol- 
diers. It  seemed  almost  ridiculous  chivalry  that  men 
who  had  fought  against  you  and  were  living  inactive 
lives  should  be  as  well  fed  as  the  men  who  were  fight- 
ing for  you.  The  rations  that  I  saw  given  to  Ger- 
man soldiers  were  better.  But  that  was  what  the 
guide  said. 

"  This  is  our  little  sitting-room  for  the  English  non- 
commissioned officers,"  he  explained,  as  he  opened  the 
door  of  a  small  shanty  which  had  a  pane  of  glass  for  a 
window.  Some  men  sitting  around  a  small  stove 
arose.  One,  a  big  sergeant-major,  towered  over  the 
others;  he  had  the  colours  of  the  South  African  cam- 
paign on  the  breast  of  his  worn  khaki  blouse  and  stood 
very  straight,  as  if  on  parade.  By  the  window  was  a 
Scot  in  kilts,  who  was  equally  tall.  He  looked  around 
over  his  shoulder  and  then  turned  his  face  away  with 
the  pride  of  a  man  who  does  not  care  to  be  regarded 
as  a  show.  His  uniform  was  as  neat  as  If  he  were  at 
inspection;  and  the  way  he  held  his  head,  the  haughti- 
ness of  his  profile  against  the  stream  of  light,  recalled 
the  unconquerable  spirit  of  the  Prussian  prisoner 
whom  I  had  seen  on  the  road  during  the  fighting  along 
the  Alsne.  Only  a  regular,  but  he  was  upholding  the 
dignity  of  Britain  in  that  prison  camp  better  than 
many  a  member  of  Parliament  on  the  floor  of  the 
House  of  Commons.     I  asked  our  guide  about  him. 

"  A  good  boy,  that!  All  his  boys  obey  him,  and  he 
obeys  all  the  regulations.  But  he  acts  as  if  we  Ger- 
mans were  his  prisoners." 

The  British  might  not  be  good  boys,  but  they  would 


HOW  THE  KAISER  LEADS  99 

be  clean.  They  were  diligent  in  the  chase  in  their 
underclothes;  their  tents  were  free  of  odour;  and  there 
v/as  something  resolute  about  a  Tommy  who  was  bare 
to  the  waist  in  that  freezing  wind,  making  an  effort  at 
a  bath,  I  heard  tales  of  Mr.  Atkins'  characteristic 
thoughtlessness.  While  the  French  took  good  care 
of  their  clothes  and  kept  their  tents  neat,  he  was  likely 
to  sell  his  coat  or  his  blanket  if  he  got  a  chance  in 
order  to  buy  something  that  he  liked  to  eat.  One 
Tommy  who  sat  on  his  stray  tick  Inside  the  tent  was 
knitting.  When  I  asked  him  where  he  had  learned 
to  knit,  he  replied:  "  India!  "  and  gave  me  a  look 
as  much  as  to  say,  "  Now  pass  on  to  the  next  cage." 

The  British  looked  the  most  pallid  of  all,  I  thought. 
They  were  not  used  to  cabbage  soup.  Their  stomachs 
did  not  take  hold  of  it,  as  one  said;  and  they  loathed 
the  black  bread.  No  white  bread  and  no  jam !  Only 
when  you  have  seen  Mr.  Atkins  with  a  pot  of  jam  and 
a  loaf  of  w^hlte  bread  and  some  bacon  frizzling  near 
by  can  you  realise  the  hardship  which  cabbage  soup 
meant  to  that  British  regular  who  gets  lavish  rations 
of  the  kind  he  likes  along  with  his  shilling  a  day  for 
professional  soldiering. 

*'  You  see,  the  boys  go  about  as  they  please,"  said 
our  guide.  "  They  don't  have  a  bad  time.  Three 
meals  a  day  and  nothing  to  do." 

Members  of  a  laughing  circle  which  Included  some 
British  were  taking  turns  at  a  kind  of  Russian  blind 
man's  buff,  which  seemed  to  me  about  in  keeping  with 
the  mental  capacity  of  a  prison  camp. 

"  No  French !  "  I  remarked. 

"  The  French  keep  to  themselves,  but  they  are  good 
boys,"  he  replied.  "  Maybe  it  is  because  we  have  only 
a  few  of  them  here." 


100    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Every  time  one  sounded  the  subject  he  was  struck 
by  the  attitude  of  the  Germans  toward  the  French, 
not  alone  explained  by  the  policy  of  the  hour  which 
hoped  for  a  separate  peace  with  France.  Perhaps  it 
was  best  traceable  to  the  Frenchman's  sense  of  amour 
propre,  his  philosophy,  his  politeness,  or  an  indefin- 
able quality  in  the  grain  of  the  man. 

The  Germans  affected  to  look  down  on  the  French; 
yet  there  was  something  about  the  Frenchman  which 
the  Germans  had  to  respect  —  something  not  won  by 
war.  I  heard  admiration  for  them  at  the  same  time 
as  contempt  for  their  red  trousers  and  their  unpre- 
paredness.  While  we  are  in  this  avenue,  German 
officers  had  respect  for  the  dignity  of  British  officers, 
the  leisurely,  easy  quality  of  superiority  which  they 
preserved  in  any  circumstances.  The  qualities  of  a 
race  come  out  in  adversity  no  less  than  in  prosperity. 
Thus,  their  captors  regarded  the  Russians  as  big, 
good-natured  children. 

"  Yes,  they  play  games  and  we  give  the  English  an 
English  newspaper  to  read  twice  a  week,"  said  our 
affable  guide,  unconscious,  I  think,  of  any  irony  in  the 
remark.  For  the  paper  was  the  Continental  News, 
published  in  "  the  American  language  "  for  American 
visitors.  You  may  take  it  for  granted  that  it  did  not 
exaggerate  any  success  of  the  Allies. 

"  We  have  a  prince  and  the  son  of  a  rich  man 
among  the  Russian  prisoners  —  yes,  quite  in  the  Four 
Hundred,"  the  guide  went  on.  "  They  were  such 
good  boys  we  put  them  to  work  in  the  cookhouse. 
Star  boarders,  eh?  They  like  it.  They  get  more  to 
eat." 

These  two  men  were  called  out  for  exhibition. 
Youngsters  of  the  first  line  they  were  and  even  in  their 


HOW  THE  KAISER  LEADS  loi 

privates'  uniforms  they  bore  the  unmistakable  signs 
of  belonging  to  the  Russian  upper  class.  Each  saluted 
and  made  his  bow,  as  if  he  had  come  on  to  do  a  turn 
before  the  footlights.  It  was  not  the  first  time  they 
had  been  paraded  before  visitors.  In  the  prince's  eye 
I  noted  a  twinkle,  which  as  much  as  said:  "Well, 
why  not?     We  don't  mind." 

When  we  were  taken  through  the  cookhouse  I  asked 
about  a  little  Frenchman,  who  was  sitting  with  his  nose 
In  a  soup  bowl.  He  seemed  too  near-sighted  ever  to 
get  into  any  army.  His  face  was  distinctly  that  of  a 
man  of  culture;  one  would  have  guessed  that  he  was 
an  artist. 

"  Shrapnel  burst,"  explained  the  guide.  "  He  will 
never  be  able  to  see  much  again.  We  let  him  come  In 
here  to  eat." 

I  wanted  to  talk  with  him,  but  these  exhibitions 
are  supposed  to  be  all  in  pantomime;  a  question  and 
you  are  urged  along  to  the  next  exhibit.  He  was 
young  and  all  his  life  he  was  to  be  like  that  —  like 
some  poor,  blind  kitten ! 

The  last  among  a  number  of  Russians  returning  to 
the  enclosure  from  some  fatigue  duty  was  given  a  blow 
in  the  seat  of  his  baggy  trousers  with  a  stick  which 
one  of  the  guards  carried.  The  Russian  quickened 
his  steps  and  seemed  to  think  nothing  of  the  Incident. 
But  to  me  it  was  the  worst  thing  that  I  saw  at  Doberltz, 
this  act  of  physical  violence  against  a  man  by  one 
who  has  power  over  him.  The  personal  equation  was 
inevitable  to  the  observer.  Struck  in  that  way,  could 
one  fail  to  strike  back?  Would  not  he  strike  In  red 
anger,  without  stopping  to  think  of  consequences? 
There  Is  something  bred  into  the  Anglo-Saxon  nature 
which  resents  a  physical  blow.     We  courtmartlal  an 


102    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

officer  for  laying  hands  on  a  private,  though  that 
private  may  get  ten  years  in  prison  on  his  trial.  Yet 
the  Russian  thought  nothing  of  it,  or  the  guard,  either. 
An  officer  in  the  German  or  the  Russian  army  may 
strike  a  man. 

"  Would  the  guard  hit  a  Frenchman  in  that  way?  " 
I  asked.  Our  guide  said  not;  the  French  were  good 
boys.  Or  an  Englishman?  He  had  not  seen  it  done. 
The  Englishman  would  swear  and  curse,  he  was  sure, 
and  might  fight,  they  were  such  undisciplined  boys. 
But  the  Russians  — *'  they  are  like  kids.  It  was  only 
a  slap.     Didn't  hurt  him  any." 

New  barracks  for  the  prisoners  were  being  built 
which  would  be  comfortable  if  crowded,  even  in  win- 
ter. The  worst  thing,  I  repeat,  was  the  deadly  mo- 
notony of  the  confinement  for  a  period  which  would 
end  only  when  the  war  ended.  Any  labour  should  be 
welcome  to  a  healthy-minded  man.  It  was  a  mercy 
that  the  Germans  set  prisoners  to  grading  roads,  to 
hoeing  and  harvesting,  retrieving  thus  a  little  of  the 
wastage  of  war.  Or  was  it  only  the  bland  insistence 
that  conditions  were  luxurious  that  one  objected  to? 
—  not  that  they  were  really  bad.  The  Germans  had 
a  horde  of  prisoners  to  care  for;  vast  armies  to  main- 
tain; and  a  new  volunteer  force  of  a  million  or  more  — 
two  millions  was  the  official  report  —  to  train. 

While  we  were  at  the  prison  camp  we  heard  at 
intervals  the  rap-rap  of  a  machine  gun  at  the  practice 
range  near  by,  drilling  to  take  more  prisoners,  and  on 
the  way  back  to  Berlin  we  passed  on  the  road  compa- 
nies of  volunteers  returning  from  drill  with  that  sturdy 
march  characteristic  of  German  infantry. 

In  Berlin  we  were  told  again  that  everything  was 
perfectly  normal.     Trains  were  running  as  usual  to 


HOW  THE  KAISER  LEADS  103 

Hamburg,  if  we  cared  to  go  there.  "  As  usual  "  in 
war  time  was  the  ratio  of  one  to  five  in  peace  time. 
At  Hamburg,  in  sight  of  steamers  with  cold  boilers 
and  the  forest  of  masts  of  idle  ships,  one  learned 
what  sea  power  meant.  That  city  of  eager  shippers 
and  traders,  that  doorstep  of  Germany,  was  as  dead 
as  Ypres,  without  a  building  being  wrecked  by  shells. 
Hamburgers  tried  to  make  the  best  of  it;  they  assumed 
an  air  of  optimism;  they  still  had  faith  that  richer 
cargoes  than  ever  might  come  over  the  sea,  while  a 
ghost,  that  of  bankruptcy,  walked  the  streets,  looking 
at  office  windows  and  the  portholes  of  the  ships. 

For  one  had  only  to  scratch  the  cuticle  of  that 
optimism  to  find  that  the  corpuscles  did  not  run  red. 
They  were  blue.  Hamburg's  citizens  had  to  exhibit 
the  fortitude  of  those  of  Rheims  under  another  kind 
of  bombardment:  that  of  the  silent  guns  of  British 
dreadnoughts  far  out  of  range.  They  were  good 
Germans;  they  meant  to  play  the  game;  but  that  once 
prosperous  business  man  of  past  middle  age,  too  old 
to  serve,  who  had  little  to  do  but  think,  found  it  hard 
to  keep  step  with  the  propagandist  attitude  of  Berlin. 

A  free  city,  a  commercial  city,  a  city  unto  itself, 
Hamburg  had  been  in  other  days  a  cosmopolitan 
trader  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  It  had  even  been 
•called  an  English  city,  owing  to  the  number  of  Eng- 
lish business  men  there  as  agents  of  the  immense  com- 
merce between  England  and  Germany.  Every  one 
who  was  a  clerk  or  an  employer  spoke  English;  and 
through  all  the  irritation  between  the  two  countries 
which  led  up  to  the  war,  English  and  German  business 
men  kept  on  the  good  terms  which  traffic  requires  and 
met  at  luncheons  and  dinners  and  in  their  clubs.  Eng- 
lishmen were  married  to  German  women  and  Germans 


I04    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  Englishwomen,  while  both  prayed  that  their  gov- 
ernments would  keep  the  peace. 

Now  the  English  husband  of  the  German  woman, 
though  he  had  spent  most  of  his  life  in  Hamburg, 
though  perhaps  he  had  been  born  in  Germany,  had 
been  interned  and,  however  large  his  bank  account, 
was  taking  his  place  with  his  pannikin  in  the  stalls  in 
front  of  some  cookhouse  for  his  ration  of  cabbage 
soup.  Germans  were  kind  to  English  friends  person- 
ally; but  when  it  came  to  the  national  feeling  of  Ger- 
many against  England,  nowhere  was  it  so  bitter  as  in 
Hamburg.  Here  the  hate  was  born  of  more  than 
national  sentiment;  it  was  of  the  pocket;  of  seeing  for- 
tunes that  had  been  laboriously  built  dwindling,  once 
thriving  businesses  in  suspended  animation.  There 
was  no  moratorium  in  name ;  there  was  worse  than  one 
in  fact.  A  patriotic  freemasonry  in  misfortune  took 
its  place.  No  business  man  could  press  another  for 
the  payment  of  debts  lest  he  be  pressed  In  turn.  What 
would  happen  when  the  war  was  over?  How  long 
would  it  last? 

It  was  not  quite  as  cruel  to  give  one's  opinion  as 
two  years  to  the  Inquirers  in  Hamburg  as  to  the  direc- 
tor of  the  great  Rudolph  Virchow  Hospital  in  Ber- 
lin. Here,  again,  the  system;  the  submergence  of  the 
individual  in  the  organisation.  The  wounded  men 
seemed  parts  of  a  machine;  the  human  touch  which 
may  lead  to  disorganisation  less  in  evidence  than  at 
home,  where  the  thought  is:  This  is  an  individual 
human  being,  with  his  own  peculiarities  of  tempera- 
ment, his  own  theories  of  life,  his  own  ego;  not  just 
a  quantity  of  brain,  tissue,  blood,  and  bone  which  is 
required  for  the  organism  called  man.  A  human 
mechanism  wounded  at  the  German  front  needed  re- 


HOW  THE  KAISER  LEADS  105 

pairs  and  the  repairs  were  made  to  that  mechanism. 
The  niceties  might  be  lacking,  but  the  repair  factory 
ran  steadily  and  efficiently  at  full  blast.  Germany  had 
to  care  for  her  wounded  by  the  millions  and  by  the 
millions  she  cared  for  them. 

"  Two  years!  " 

I  was  sorry  that  I  had  said  this  to  the  director,  for 
its  effect  on  him  was  like  a  blow  in  the  chest.  The 
vision  of  more  and  more  wounded  seemed  to  rise  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  this  kindly  man  weary  with  the  strain 
of  doing  the  work  which  he  knew  so  well  how  to  do  as 
a  cog  in  the  system.  But  for  only  a  moment.  He 
stiffened;  he  became  the  drillmaster  again;  and  the 
tragic  look  in  his  eyes  was  succeeded  by  one  of  that 
strange  exaltation  I  had  seen  in  the  eyes  of  so  many 
Germans,  which  appeared  to  carry  their  mind  away 
from  you  and  their  surroundings  to  the  battlefield 
where  they  were  fighting  for  their  "  place  in  the  sun." 

"  Two  years,  then.     We  shall  see  it  through!  " 

He  had  a  son  who  had  been  living  in  a  French  fam- 
ily near  Lille  studying  French  and  he  had  heard  noth- 
ing of  him  since  the  war  began.  They  were  good 
people,  this  French  family ;  his  son  liked  them.  They 
would  be  kind  to  him ;  but  what  might  not  the  French 
Government  do  to  him,  a  German!  He  had  heard 
terrible  stories  —  the  kind  of  stories  that  hardened  the 
fighting  spirit  of  German  soldiers  —  about  the  treat- 
ment German  civilians  had  received  in  France.  He 
could  think  of  one  French  family  which  he  knew  as 
being  kind,  but  not  of  the  whole  French  people  as  a 
family.  As  soon  as  the  national  and  racial  element 
were  considered  the  enemy  became  a  beast. 

To  him,  at  least,  Berlin  was  not  normal;  nor  was 
it  to  that  keeper  of  a  small  shop  off  Unter  den  Linden 


io6    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

which  sold  prints  and  etchings  and  cartoons.  What 
a  boon  my  order  of  cartoons  was  to  him !  He  forgot 
his  psychology  code  and  turned  human  and  confiden- 
tial. The  war  had  been  hard  on  him;  there  was  no 
business  at  all,  not  even  In  cartoons. 

The  Opera  alone  seemed  something  like  normal  to 
one  who  trusted  his  eyes  rather  than  his  ears  for  In- 
formation. There  was  almost  a  full  house  for  the 
"  Rosenkavaller  " ;  for  music  is  a  solace  In  time  of 
trouble,  as  other  capitals  than  Berlin  revealed.  Offi- 
cers with  close-cropped  heads  wearing  Iron  Crosses, 
some  with  arms  in  slings,  promenading  In  the  refresh- 
ment room  of  the  Berlin  Opera  House  between  the 
acts  —  this  In  the  hour  of  victory  should  mean  a  pic- 
ture of  gaiety.  But  there  was  a  telling  hush  about  the 
scene.  Possibly  music  had  brought  out  the  truth  in 
men's  hearts  that  war,  this  kind  of  war,  was  not  gay 
or  romantic,  only  murderous  and  destructive.  One 
had  noticed  already  that  the  Prussian  officer,  so  con- 
scious of  his  caste,  who  had  worked  so  indefatlgably 
to  make  an  efficient  army,  had  become  chastened.  He 
had  found  that  common  men,  butchers  and  bakers  and 
candlestick  makers,  could  be  as  brave  for  their  Kaiser 
as  he.  And  more  of  these  officers  had  the  Iron  Cross 
than  not. 

The  plenitude  of  Iron  Crosses  appealed  to  the  risi- 
bilities of  the  superficial  observer.  But  in  this,  too, 
there  was  system.  An  officer  who  had  been  In  several 
battles  without  winning  one  must  feel  a  trifle  declassed 
and  that  it  was  time  for  him  to  make  amends  to  his 
pride.  If  many  were  given  to  privates  then  the  aver- 
age soldier  would  not  think  the  Cross  a  prize  for  the 
few  who  had  luck,  but  something  that  he,  too,  might 
win  by  courage  and  prompt  obedience  to  orders. 


HOW  THE  KAISER  LEADS  107 

The  masterful  calculation,  the  splendid  pretence 
and  magnificent  offence,  could  not  hide  the  suspense 
and  suffering.  Nowhere  were  you  able  to  forget  the 
war  or  to  escape  the  all-pervading  influence  of  the 
Kaiser.  The  empty  royal  box  at  the  opera,  his  opera, 
called  him  to  mind.  What  would  happen  before  he 
reappeared  there  for  a  gala  performance?  When 
again  in  the  shuffle  of  European  politics  would  the 
audience  see  the  Czar  of  Russia  or  the  King  of  Eng- 
land by  his  side? 

It  was  his  Berlin,  the  heart  of  his  Berlin,  that  was 
before  you  when  you  left  the  opera  —  the  new  Ber- 
lin, taking  few  pages  of  a  guide  book  compared  to 
Paris,  which  he  had  fathered  in  its  boom  growth.  In 
front  of  his  palace  Russian  field  guns  taken  by  von 
Hindenburg  at  Tannenberg  were  exhibited  as  the 
spoils  of  his  war;  while  the  Never-to-be-Forgotten 
Grandfather  in  bronze  rode  home  in  triumph  from 
Paris  not  far  away. 

One  wondered  what  all  the  people  in  the  ocean  of 
Berlin  flats  were  thinking  as  one  walked  past  the 
statue  of  Frederick  the  Great,  with  his  sharp  nose 
pointing  the  way  for  future  conquerors,  and  on  along 
Unter  den  Linden,  with  its  broad  pavements  gleaming 
in  a  characteristic,  misty  winter  night,  through  the 
Brandenburg  Gate  of  his  Brandenburg  dynasty,  or  to 
the  statue  of  the  blood-and-iron  Bismarck,  with  his 
strong  jaw  and  pugnacious  nose  —  the  statesman  mili- 
tant in  uniform  with  a  helmet  over  his  bushy  brow  — 
who  had  made  the  German  Empire,  that  young  empire 
which  had  not  yet  known  defeat  because  of  the  sys- 
tem which  makes  ready  and  chooses  the  hour  for  its 
blow. 

Not  far  away  one  had  glimpses  of  the  white  statues 


io8    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  My  Ancestors  of  the  Sieges  Allee,  or  avenue  of 
victory, —  the  present  Kaiser's  own  idea, —  with  the 
great  men  of  the  time  on  their  right  and  left  hands. 
People  whose  sense  of  taste,  not  to  say  of  humour, 
may  limit  their  statecraft  had  smiled  at  this  monoto- 
nous and  grandiose  row  of  all  the  dead  bones  of  dis- 
tinguished and  mediocre  royalty  immortalised  in  mar- 
ble to  the  exact  number  of  thirty-two.  But  they  were 
My  Ancestors,  O  Germans,  who  made  you  what  you 
are!  Right  dress  and  keep  that  line  of  royalty  in 
mind!  It  is  your  royal  line,  older  than  the  trees  in 
the  garden,  firm  as  the  rocks,  Germany  itself.  The 
last  is  not  the  least  in  might  nor  the  least  advertised 
in  the  age  of  publicity.  He  is  to  make  the  next  step 
in  advance  for  Germany  and  bring  more  tribute  home, 
if  all  Germans  will  be  loyal  to  him. 

One  paused  to  look  at  the  photograph  of  the  Kaiser 
In  a  shop  window;  a  big  photograph  of  that  man  whose 
photograph  is  everywhere  in  Germany.  It  is  a  stern 
face,  this  face,  as  the  leader  wishes  his  people  to  see 
him,  with  its  erectile  moustache,  the  lips  firm  set,  the 
eyes  challenging  and  the  chin  held  so  as  to  make  it 
symbolic  of  strength :  a  face  that  strives  to  say  in  that 
pose:  "Onward!  I  lead!"  Germans  have  seen  it 
every  day  for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  They  have 
lived  with  it  and  the  character  of  it  has  grown  into 
their  natures. 

In  the  same  window  was  a  smaller  photograph  of  the 
Crown  Prince,  with  his  cap  rakishly  on  the  side  of  his 
head,  as  if  to  give  himself  a  distinctive  characteristic 
in  the  German  eye;  but  his  is  the  face  of  a  man  who 
is  not  mature  for  his  years  and  a  trifle  dissipated. 
For  a  while  after  the  war  began  he,  as  leader  of  the 


HOW  THE  KAISER  LEADS  109 

war  party,  knew  the  joy  of  being  more  popular  than 
the  Kaiser.  But  the  tide  turned  soon  in  favour  of  a 
father,  who  appeared  to  be  drawn  reluctantly  into  the 
ordeal  of  death  and  wounds  for  his  people  in  "  defence 
of  the  Fatherland,"  and  against  a  son  who  had  clam- 
oured for  the  horror  which  his  people  had  begun  to 
realise,  particularly  as  his  promised  entry  into  Paris 
had  failed.  There  can  be  no  question  which  of  the 
two  has  the  wiser  head. 

The  Crown  Prince  had  passed  into  the  background. 
He  was  marooned  with  ennui  in  the  face  of  the  French 
trenches  in  the  West,  while  all  the  glory  was  being 
won  in  the  East.  Indeed,  father  had  put  son  in  his 
place.  One  day,  the  gossips  said,  son  might  have  to 
ask  father,  in  the  name  of  the  Hohenzollerns,  to  help 
him  recover  his  popularity.  His  photograph  had  been 
taken  down  from  shop  windows  and  in  its  place,  on 
the  right  hand  of  the  Kaiser  in  the  Sieges  Allee  of  con- 
temporary fame,  was  the  bull-dog  face  of  von  Hinden- 
burg,  victor  of  Tannenberg.  The  Kaiser  shared  von 
Hindenburg's  glory;  he  has  shared  the  glory  of  all 
victorious  generals;  such  is  his  histrionic  gift  in  the 
age  of  the  spotlight. 

Make  no  mistake  —  his  people,  deluded  or  not,  love 
him  not  only  because  he  is  Kaiser  but  also  for  himself. 
He  is  a  clever  man,  who  began  his  career  with  the 
enormous  capital  of  being  emperor  and  made  the  most 
of  his  position  to  amaze  the  world  with  a  more  versa- 
tile and  also  a  more  inscrutable  personality  than  most 
people  realise.  Poseur,  perhaps,  but  an  emperor 
these  days  may  need  to  be  a  poseur  in  order  to  wear 
the  ermine  of  Divine  Right  convincingly  to  most  of 
his  subjects. 


no    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

His  pose  Is  always  that  of  the  anointed  King  of 
My  People.  He  has  never  given  down  on  that  point, 
however  much  he  has  applied  State  Socialism  to  ap- 
pease the  Socialistic  agitation.  He  has  personified 
Germany  and  German  ambition  with  an  adroit  egoism 
and  the  sentiment  of  his  inheritance.  Those  critics 
who  see  the  machinery  of  the  throne  may  say  that  he 
has  the  mind  of  a  journalist,  quick  of  perception,  ready 
of  assimilation,  knowing  many  things  in  their  essentials 
but  no  one  thing  thoroughly.  But  this  Is  the  kind  of 
mind  that  a  ruler  requires,  plus  the  craft  of  the  poli- 
tician. 

Is  he  a  good  man?  Is  he  a  great  man?  Banal 
questions !  He  is  the  Kaiser  on  the  background  of  the 
Sieges  Allee,  who  has  first  promoted  himself,  then  the 
Hohenzollerns,  and  then  the  interests  of  Germany 
with  all  the  zest  of  the  foremost  shareholder  and 
president  of  the  corporation.  No  German  in  the  Ger- 
man hothouse  of  Industry  has  worked  harder  than  he. 
He  has  kept  himself  up  to  the  mark  and  tried  to  keep 
his  people  up  to  the  mark.  It  may  be  the  wrong  kind 
of  a  mark;  but  we  are  not  discussing  that,  and  we  may 
beg  leave  to  differ  without  threshing  the  old  straw  of 
argument. 

That  young  private  I  met  In  the  grounds  at  Char- 
lottenberg,  that  wounded  man  helping  with  the  har- 
vest, that  tired  hospital  director,  the  small  trader  In 
Hamburg,  the  sturdy  Red  Cross  woman  in  the  station 
at  Hanover,  the  peasants  and  the  workers  throughout 
Germany,  kept  unimaginatively  at  their  tasks,  do  not 
see  the  machinery  of  the  throne,  only  the  man  In  the 
photograph  who  supplies  them  with  a  national  Imagi- 
nation. His  Indefatigable  goings  and  comings  and  his 
poses  fill  their  minds  with  a  personality  which  typifies 


HOW  THE  KAISER  LEADS  in 

the  national  spirit.  Will  this  change  after  the  war? 
But  that,  too,  is  not  a  subject  for  speculation  here. 

Through  the  war  his  pose  has  met  the  needs  of  the 
hour.  An  emperor  bowed  down  with  the  weight  of 
his  people's  sacrifice,  a  grey,  determined  emperor 
hastening  to  honour  the  victors,  covering  up  defeats, 
urging  his  legions  on,  himself  at  the  front,  never  seen 
by  the  general  public  in  the  rear,  a  mysterious  figure, 
not  saying  much  and  that  foolish  to  the  Allies  but  ap- 
pealing to  the  Germans,  rather  appearing  to  submerge 
his  own  personality  in  the  united  patriotism  of  the 
struggle  —  such  is  the  picture  which  the  throne  ma- 
chinery has  impressed  on  the  German  mind.  The  his- 
trionic gift  may  be  at  its  best  in  creating  a  saga. 

Always  the  offensive !  Germany  would  keep  on 
striking  as  long  as  she  had  strength  for  a  blow,  while 
making  the  pretence  that  she  had  the  strength  for  still 
heavier  blows.  One  wonders,  should  she  gain  peace 
by  her  blows,  if  the  Allies  would  awaken  after  the 
treaty  was  signed  to  find  how  near  exhaustion  she  had 
been,  or  that  she  was  so  self-contained  in  her  produc- 
tion of  war  material  that  she  had  only  borrowed  from 
Hans  to  pay  Fritz,  who  were  both  Germans,  Russia 
did  not  know  how  nearly  she  had  Japan  beaten  until 
after  Portsmouth.  Japan's  method  was  the  German 
method;  she  learned  it  from  Germany. 

At  the  end  of  my  journey  I  was  hearing  the  same 
din  of  systematic  optimism  in  my  ears  as  in  the  begin- 
ning. 

"  Warsaw,  then  Paris,  then  our  Zeppelins  will  fin- 
ish London,"  said  the  restaurant  keeper  on  the  Ger- 
man side  of  the  Dutch  frontier;  *'  and  our  submarines 
will  settle  the  British  navy  before  the  summer  is  over. 
No,  the  war  will  not  last  a  year." 


112    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"And  is  America  next  on  the  programme?"   I 

asked. 

"  No.     America  is  too  strong;  too  far  away." 

I  was  guilty  of  a  faint  suspicion  that  he  was  a 

diplomatist. 


IX 

IN  BELGIUM   UNDER  THE   GERMANS 

British  hospitality  to  the  Belgians  —  A  Dutch  refugee  camp  —  The 
American  Commission  for  relief  —  Its  generals  —  From  Holland 
to  Belgium  —  A  forlorn  Landsturm  guard  —  Life  in  a  conquered 
Land  —  The  overlords  in  Antwerp  —  Belgium's  hatred  —  The 
problem  of  feeding  Belgium  —  American  volunteers — "  Some  ex- 
perience"—  The  conqueror's  net  —  Relics  of  the  former  regime. 

No  week  at  the  front,  where  war  is  made,  left  the 
mind  so  full  as  this  week  beyond  the  sound  of  the  guns 
with  war's  results.  It  taught  the  meaning  of  the  sim- 
ple words  life  and  death,  hunger  and  food,  love  and 
hate.  One  was  in  a  house  with  sealed  doors,  where 
a  family  of  seven  millions  sat  in  silence  and  idleness, 
thinking  of  nothing  but  war  and  feeling  nothing  but 
war.  He  had  war  cold  as  the  fragments  of  a  shrap- 
nel shell  beside  a  dead  man  on  a  frozen  road;  war 
analysed  and  docketed  for  exhibition,  without  its  noise, 
its  distraction,  and  its  hot  passion. 

In  Ostend  I  had  seen  the  Belgian  refugees  in  flight 
and  I  had  seen  them  pouring  into  London  stations, 
bedraggled  outcasts  of  every  class,  with  the  staring 
uncertainty  of  the  helpless  human  flock  flying  from  the 
storm.  England,  who  considered  that  they  had  suf- 
fered for  her  sake,  opened  her  purse  and  her  heart  to 
them;  she  opened  her  homes,  both  modest  suburban 
homes  and  big  country  houses  which  are  particular 
about  their  guests  in  time  of  peace.  No  British  fam- 
ily without  a  Belgian  was  doing  its  duty.     Bishop's 

113 


114    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

wife  and  publican's  wife  took  whatever  Belgian  was 
sent  to  her.  The  refugee  packet  arrived  without  the 
nature  of  contents  on  the  address  label.  All  Belgians 
had  become  heroic  and  noble  by  grace  of  the  defend- 
ers of  Liege. 

Perhaps  the  bishop's  wife  received  a  young  woman 
who  smoked  cigarettes  and  asked  her  hostess  for  rouge 
and  the  publican's  wife  received  a  countess.  Mrs. 
Smith  of  Clapham,  who  had  brought  up  her  children 
in  the  strictest  propriety,  welcomed  as  playmates  for 
her  dears,  whom  she  had  kept  away  from  the  contami- 
nating associations  of  the  alleys,  Belgian  children  from 
the  toughest  quarters  of  Antwerp,  who  had  a  precocity 
that  led  to  baffling  confusion  in  Mrs.  Smith's  mind 
between  parental  responsibility  and  patriotic  duty. 
Smart  society  gave  the  run  of  its  houses  sometimes  to 
gentry  who  were  used  to  getting  the  run  of  that  kind 
of  houses  by  lifting  a  window  with  a  jimmy  on  a  dark 
night.  It  was  a  refugee  lottery.  When  two  hosts 
met  one  said:  "  My  Belgian  is  charming!  "  and  the 
other  said:  "Mine  isn't.  Just  listen — "  But  the 
English  are  game ;  they  are  loyal ;  they  bore  their  bur- 
den of  hospitality  bravely. 

The  strange  things  that  happened  were  not  the 
more  agreeable  because  of  the  attitude  of  some  refu- 
gees, who  when  they  were  getting  better  fare  than  they 
ever  had  at  home,  thought  that,  as  they  had  given 
their  "  all  "  for  England,  they  should  be  getting  still 
better,  not  to  mention  wine  on  the  table  in  temperance 
families;  while  there  was  a  disinclination  toward  self- 
support  by  means  of  work  on  the  part  of  certain  he- 
roes which  promised  a  Belgian  occupation  of  England 
that  would  last  as  long  as  the  German  occupation  of 
Belgium.     England  was  learning  that  there  are  Bel- 


BELGIUM  UNDER  THE  GERMANS     115 

gians  and  Belgians.  She  had  received  not  a  few  of 
the  "  and  Belgians." 

It  was  only  natural.  When  the  German  cruisers 
bombarded  Scarborough  and  the  Hartlepools,  the  first 
to  the  station  were  not  the  finest  and  sturdiest.  Those 
with  good  bank  accounts  and  a  disinclination  to  take 
any  bodily  or  gastronomic  risks,  the  young  Idler  who 
stands  on  the  street  corner  ogling  girls  and  the  girls 
who  are  always  In  the  street  to  be  ogled,  the  flighty- 
minded,  the  irresponsible,  the  tramp,  the  selfish,  and 
the  cowardly  are  bound  to  be  In  the  van  of  flight  from 
any  sudden  disaster  and  to  make  the  most  of  the  gen- 
erous sympathy  of  those  who  succour  them. 

The  courageous,  the  responsible,  those  with  homes 
and  property  at  stake,  those  with  an  Inborn  sense  of 
real  patriotism  which  means  loyalty  to  locality  and  to 
their  neighbours,  are  more  inclined  to  remain  with 
their  homes  and  their  property.  Besides,  a  refugee 
hardly  appears  at  his  best.  He  is  In  a  strange  coun- 
try, forlorn,  homesick,  a  hostage  of  fate  and  personal 
misfortune.  The  Belgian  nation  had  taken  the  Allies' 
side  and  now  all  Individual  Belgians  expected  the  Al- 
lies to  help  them. 

England  did  not  get  the  worst  of  the  refugees. 
They  could  travel  no  farther  than  Holland,  where  the 
Dutch  Government  appropriated  money  to  care  for 
them  at  the  same  time  that  It  was  under  the  expense 
of  keeping  Its  army  mobilised.  Looking  at  the  refu- 
gees in  the  camp  at  Bergen  op  Zoom,  an  observer 
might  share  some  of  the  contempt  of  the  Germans  for 
the  Belgians.  Crowded  in  temporary  huts  in  the  chill, 
misty  weather  of  a  Dutch  winter,  they  seemed  listless, 
marooned  human  wreckage.  They  would  not  dig 
ditches  to  drain  their  camp;  they  were  given  to  pil- 


ii6  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

fering  from  one  another  the  clothes  which  the  world's 
charity  supplied.  The  heart  was  out  of  them.  They 
were  numbed  by  disaster. 

"  Are  all  these  men  and  women  who  are  living  to- 
gether married?  "  I  asked  the  Dutch  officer  in  charge. 

"  It  is  not  for  us  to  inquire,"  he  replied.  "  Most 
of  them  say  that  they  have  lost  their  marriage  certifi- 
cates." 

They  were  from  the  slums  of  that  polyglot  seaport 
town  Antwerp,  which  Belgians  say  is  anything  but  real 
Belgium.  To  judge  Belgium  by  them  is  like  judging 
an  American  town  by  the  worst  of  its  back  streets, 
where  saloons  and  pawnshops  are  numerous  and  the 
red  lights  twinkle  from  dark  doorways. 

Around  a  table  in  a  Rotterdam  hotel  one  met  some 
generals,  who  were  organising  a  different  kind  of  cam- 
paign from  that  which  brought  glory  to  the  generals 
who  conquered  Belgium.  It  was  odd  that  Dr.  Rose 
—  that  Dr.  Rose  who  had  discovered  and  fought  the 
hook  worm  among  the  mountaineers  of  the  Southern 
States  —  should  be  succouring  Belgium,  and  yet  only 
natural.  Where  else  should  he  and  Henry  James,  Jr., 
of  the  Rockefeller  Foundation,  and  Mr.  Bicknell,  of 
the  American  Red  Cross,  be,  if  not  here  directing  the 
use  of  an  endowment  fund  set  aside  for  just  such  pur- 
poses? 

They  had  been  all  over  Belgium  and  up  Into  the 
Northern  departments  of  France  occupied  by  the  Ger- 
mans, Investigating  conditions.  For  they  were  prac- 
tical men,  trained  for  solving  the  problem  of  charity 
with  wisdom,  who  wanted  to  know  that  their  money 
was  well  spent.  They  had  nothing  for  the  refugees 
In  London,  but  they  found  that  the  people  who  had 
stayed  at  home  in  Belgium  were  worthy  of  help.     The 


BELGIUM  UNDER  THE  GERMANS     117 

fund  was  allowing  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  a 
month  for  the  American  Commission  for  Relief  in 
Belgium,  which  was  the  amount  that  the  Germans  had 
spent  in  a  single  day  in  the  destruction  of  the  town 
of  Ypres  with  shells.  Later  they  were  to  go  to  Po- 
land; then  to  Serbia. 

With  them  was  Herbert  C.  Hoover,  a  celebrated 
mining  engineer,  the  head  of  the  Commission.  When 
American  tourists  were  stranded  over  Europe  at  the 
outset  of  the  war,  with  letters  of  credit  which  could 
not  be  cashed,  their  route  homeward  must  lie  through 
London.  They  must  have  steamer  passage.  Hoo- 
ver took  charge.  When  this  work  was  done  and  Bel- 
gium must  be  helped,  he  took  charge  of  a  task  that 
could  be  done  only  by  a  neutral.  For  the  adjutants 
and  field  officers  of  his  force  he  turned  to  American 
business  men  in  London,  to  Rhodes  scholars  at  Oxford, 
and  to  other  volunteers  hastening  from  America. 

When  Harvard,  19 14,  who  had  lent  a  hand  in  the 
American  refugees'  trials,  appeared  in  Hoover's  of- 
fice to  volunteer  for  the  new  campaign,  Hoover  said: 

"  You  are  going  to  Rotterdam  to-night." 

"So  I  am!  "  said  Harvard,  1914,  and  started  ac- 
cordingly. Action  and  not  red  tape  must  prevail  in 
such  an  organisation. 

The  Belgians  whom  I  wished  to  see  were  those 
behind  the  line  of  guards  on  the  Belgo-Dutch  fron- 
tier; those  who  had  remained  at  home  under  the  Ger- 
mans to  face  humiliation  and  hunger.  This  was  pos- 
sible if  you  had  the  right  sort  of  influence  and  your 
passport  the  right  sort  of  vises  to  accompany  a 
Besheinigung,  according  to  the  form  of  "  31  Oktober, 
1914,  Sect.  616,  Nr.  1083,"  signed  by  the  German 
consul  at  Rotterdam,  which  put  me  in  the  same  auto- 


ii8    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

mobile  with  Harvard,  19 14,  that  stopped  one  blustery, 
snowy  day  of  late  December  before  a  gate,  with  Bel- 
gium on  one  side  and  Holland  on  the  other  side  of  it 
on  the  Rosendaal-Antwerp  road. 

"  Once  more!  "  said  Harvard,  19 14,  who  had  made 
this  journey  many  times  as  a  despatch  rider. 

One  of  the  conquerors,  the  sentry  representing  the 
majesty  of  German  authority  in  Belgium,  examined 
the  pass.  The  conqueror  was  a  good  deal  larger 
around  the  middle  than  when  he  was  young,  but  not 
so  large  as  when  he  went  to  war.  He  had  a  scarf 
tied  over  his  ears  under  a  cracked  old  patent  leather 
helmet,  which  the  Saxon  Landsturm  must  have  taken 
from  their  garrets  when  the  Kaiser  sent  the  old  fel- 
lows to  keep  the  Belgians  in  order,  so  that  the  young 
men  could  be  spared  to  get  rheumatism  in  the  trenches 
if  they  escaped  death. 

You  could  see  that  the  conqueror  missed  his  wife's 
cooking  and  Sunday  afternoon  in  the  beer  garden  with 
his  family.  However  much  he  loved  the  Kaiser,  it 
did  not  make  him  love  home  any  the  less.  His  nod 
admitted  us  into  German-ruled  Belgium.  He  looked 
so  lonely  that  as  our  car  started  I  sent  him  a  smile. 
Surprise  broke  on  his  face.  Somebody  not  a  German 
in  uniform  had  actually  smiled  at  him  in  Belgium ! 
My  last  glimpse  of  him  was  of  a  grin  spreading  under 
the  scarf  toward  his  ears. 

Belgium  was  webbed  with  these  old  Landsturm 
guards.  If  your  Passerschein  was  not  right,  you 
might  survive  the  first  set  of  sentries  and  even  the 
second,  but  the  third,  and  if  not  the  third  some  suc- 
ceeding one  of  the  dozens  on  the  way  to  Brussels, 
would  hale  you  before  a  Kommandatur.  Then  you 
were  in  trouble.     In  travelling  about  Europe  I  became 


BELGIUM  UNDER  THE  GERMANS     119 

so  used  to  passes  that  when  I  returned  to  New  York 
I  could  not  have  thought  of  going  to  Hoboken  with- 
out the  German  consul's  visa,  or  of  dining  at  a  French 
restaurant  without  the  French  consul's. 

"And  again  1  "  said  Harvard,  19 14,  as  we  came  to 
another  sentry.  There  was  good  reason  why  Har- 
vard had  his  pass  in  a  leather-bound  case  under  a 
celluloid  face.  Otherwise,  it  would  soon  have  been 
worn  out  in  showing.  He  had  been  warned  by  the 
Commission  not  to  talk  and  he  did  not  talk.  He  was 
neutrality  personified.  All  he  did  was  to  show  his 
pass.  He  could  be  silent  In  three  languages.  The 
only  time  I  got  anything  like  partisanship  out  of  him 
and  two  sentences  in  succession  was  when  I  mentioned 
the  Harvard-Yale  football  game. 

"My!  Wasn't  that  a  smear!  In  their  new  sta- 
dium, too!     Oh,  my!     Wish  I  had  been  there!  " 

When  the  car  broke  a  spring  halfway  to  Antwerp, 
he  remarked,  "Naturally!"  or,  rather,  a  more  ex- 
pressive monosyllable  which  did  not  sound  neutral. 

While  he  and  the  Belgian  chauffeur,  with  the  help 
of  a  Belgian  farmer  as  spectator,  were  patching  up 
the  broken  spring,  I  had  a  look  at  the  farm.  The 
winter  crops  were  in;  the  cabbages  and  Brussels 
sprouts  in  the  garden  were  untouched.  It  happened 
that  the  scorching  finger  of  war's  destruction  had  not 
been  laid  on  this  little  property.  In  the  yard  the  wife 
was  doing  the  week's  washing,  her  hands  in  hot  water 
and  her  arms  exposed  to  weather  so  cold  that  I  felt 
none  too  warm  in  a  heavy  overcoat.  At  first  sight  she 
gave  me  a  frown,  which  instantly  dissipated  into  a 
smile  when  she  saw  that  I  was  not  German. 

If  not  German,  I  must  be  a  friend.  Yet  if  I  were 
I  would  not  dare  talk  —  not  with  German  sentries  all 


120    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

about  She  lifted  her  hand  from  the  suds  and  swung 
it  out  to  the  west  toward  England  and  France  with  an 
eager,  craving  fire  in  her  eyes,  and  then  she  swept  it 
across  in  front  of  her  as  if  she  were  sweeping  a  spider 
off  a  table.  When  it  stopped  at  arm's  length  there 
was  the  triumph  of  hate  in  her  eyes.  I  thought  of 
the  lid  of  a  cauldron  raised  to  let  out  a  burst  of  steam 
as  she  asked:  "When?"  When?  When  would 
the  Allies  come  and  turn  the  Germans  out? 

She  was  a  kind,  hard-working  woman,  who  would 
help  any  stranger  In  trouble  the  best  she  knew  how. 
Probably  that  Saxon  whose  smile  had  spread  under  his 
scarf  had  much  the  same  kind  of  wife.  Yet  I  knew 
that  if  the  Allies'  guns  were  driving  the  Germans 
past  her  house  and  her  husband  had  a  rifle,  he  would 
put  a  shot  in  that  Saxon's  back,  or  she  would  pour 
boiling  water  on  the  enemy's  head  if  she  could.  Then, 
If  the  Germans  had  time,  they  would  burn  the  farm- 
house and  kill  the  husband  who  had  shot  one  of  their 
comrades. 

I  recollect  a  youth  who  had  been  in  a  railroad  acci- 
dent saying:  "That  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever 
seen  death;  the  first  time  I  realised  what  death  was," 
Exactly.  You  don't  know  death  till  you  have  seen  it; 
you  don't  know  invasion  till  you  have  felt  It.  How- 
ever wise,  however  able  the  conquerors,  life  under 
them  is  a  living  death.  True,  the  farmer's  property 
was  untouched.  But  his  liberty  was  gone.  If  you,  a 
well-behaved  citizen,  have  ever  been  arrested  and 
marched  through  the  streets  of  your  home  town  by  a 
policeman,  how  did  you  like  It?  Give  the  policeman 
a  rifle  and  a  fixed  bayonet  and  full  cartridge  boxes 
and  transform  him  into  a  foreigner  and  the  experience 
would  not  be  any  more  pleasant. 


BELGIUM  UNDER  THE  GERMANS     121 

That  farmer  could  not  go  to  the  next  town  with- 
out the  permission  of  the  sentries.  He  could  not 
even  mail  a  letter  to  his  son  who  was  in  the  trenches 
with  the  Allies.  The  Germans  had  taken  his  horse; 
theirs  the  power  to  take  anything  he  had  —  the  power 
of  the  bayonet.  If  he  wanted  to  send  his  produce  to 
a  foreign  market,  if  he  wanted  to  buy  food  in  a  for- 
eign market,  the  British  naval  blockade  closed  the  sea 
to  him.  He  was  sitting  on  a  chair  of  steel  spikes, 
hands  tied  and  mouth  gagged,  while  his  mind  seethed, 
solacing  its  hate  with  hope  through  the  long  winter 
months.  If  you  lived  in  Kansas  and  could  not  get 
your  wheat  to  Chicago,  or  any  groceries  or  newspapers 
from  the  nearest  town,  or  learn  whether  your  son  in 
Wyoming  were  alive  or  dead,  or  whether  the  man  who 
owned  your  mortgage  in  New  York  had  foreclosed  or 
not  —  well,  that  is  enough  without  the  German  sentry. 

Only,  instead  of  newspapers  or  word  about  the 
mortgage,  the  thing  you  needed  past  that  blockade  was 
bread  to  keep  you  from  starving.  America  opened 
a  window  and  slipped  a  loaf  into  the  empty  larder. 
Those  Belgian  soldiers  whom  I  had  seen  at  Dixmude, 
wounded,  exhausted,  mud-caked,  shivering,  were 
happy  beside  the  people  at  home.  They  were  in  the 
fight.  It  is  not  the  destruction  of  towns  and  houses 
that  impresses  you  most,  but  the  misery  expressed 
by  that  peasant  woman  over  her  washtub. 

A  writer  can  make  a  lot  of  the  burst  of  a  single 
shell;  a  photographer  showing  the  ruins  of  a  block 
of  buildings  or  a  church  makes  it  appear  that  all 
blocks  and  all  churches  are  in  ruins.  Running  through 
Antwerp  in  a  car,  one  saw  few  signs  of  destruction 
from  the  bombardment.  You  will  see  them  if  you  are 
specially  conducted.     Shops   were   open,   the   people 


122  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

were  moving  about  In  the  streets,  which  were  well 
lighted.  No  need  of  darkness  for  fear  of  bombs 
dropping  here  I  German  barracks  had  safe  shelter 
from  aerial  raids  In  a  city  whose  people  were  the 
allies  of  England  and  France.  But  at  intervals 
marched  the  German  patrols. 

When  our  car  stopped  before  a  restaurant  a  knot 
gathered  around  It.  Their  faces  were  like  all  the 
other  faces  I  saw  In  Belgium  —  unless  German  — 
with  that  restrained,  drawn  look  of  passive  resist- 
ance, persistent  even  when  they  smiled.  When? 
When  were  the  Allies  coming?  Their  eyes  asked  the 
question  which  their  tongues  dared  not.  Inside  the 
restaurant  a  score  of  German  officers  served  by  Bel- 
gian waiters  were  dining.  Who  were  our  little  party? 
What  were  we  doing  there  and  speaking  English  — 
English,  the  hateful  language  of  the  hated  enemy? 
Oh,  yes!  We  were  Americans  connected  with  the  re- 
lief work.  But  between  the  officers'  stares  at  the 
sound  of  English  and  the  appealing  Inquiry  of  the 
faces  In  the  street  lay  an  abyss  of  war's  fierce  sus- 
picion and  national  policies  and  racial  enmity,  which 
America  had  to  bridge. 

Before  we  could  help  Belgium,  England,  blockad- 
ing Germany  to  keep  her  from  getting  foodstuffs,  had 
to  consent.  She  would  consent  only  If  none  of  the 
food  reached  German  mouths.  Germany  had  to 
agree  not  to  requisition  any  of  the  food.  Some  one 
not  German  and  not  British  must  see  to  Its  distribu- 
tion. Those  rigid  German  military  authorities,  hold- 
ing fast  to  their  military  secrets,  must  consent  to  scores 
of  foreigners  moving  about  Belgium  and  sending  mes- 
sages across  that  Belgo-Dutch  frontier,  which  had  been 
dosed  to  all  except  official  German  messages.     This 


BELGIUM  UNDER  THE  GERMANS     123 

called  for  men  whom  both  the  German  and  the  Brit- 
ish duellists  would  trust  to  succour  the  human  beings 
crouched  and  helpless  under  the  circling  flashes  of 
their  steel. 

Fortunately,  our  Minister  to  Belgium  was  Brand 
Whltlock.  He  is  no  Talleyrand  or  Metternlch.  If 
he  were,  the  Belgians  might  not  have  been  fed,  be- 
cause he  might  have  been  suspected  of  being  too  much 
of  a  diplomatist.  When  a  German,  or  an  English- 
man, or  a  Hottentot,  or  any  other  kind  of  a  human 
being  gets  to  know  Whltlock,  he  recognises  that  here 
is  an  honest  man  with  a  big  heart.  When  leading 
Belgians  came  to  him  and  said  that  winter  would  find 
Belgium  without  bread,  he  turned  from  the  land  that 
has  the  least  food  to  his  own  land,  which  has  the 
most. 

For  Belgium  is  a  great  shop  in  the  midst  of  a  gar- 
den. Her  towns  are  so  close  together  that  they  seem 
only  suburbs  of  Brussels  and  Antwerp.  She  has  the 
densest  population  in  Europe.  She  raises  only  enough 
food  to  last  her  for  two  months  of  the  year.  The 
food  for  the  other  ten  months  she  buys  with  the  prod- 
ucts of  her  factories.  In  19 14-15  Belgium  could  not 
send  out  her  products;  so  we  were  to  help  feed  her 
without  pay,  and  England  and  France  were  to  give 
money  to  buy  what  food  we  did  not  give. 

But  with  the  British  navy  generously  allowing  food 
to  pass  the  blockade,  the  problem  was  far  from  solved. 
Ships  laden  with  supplies  steaming  to  Rotterdam  — 
this  was  a  matter  of  easy  organisation.  How  get 
the  bread  to  the  hungry  mouths  when  the  Germans 
were  using  all  Belgian  railroads  for  military  pur- 
poses? Germany  was  not  inclined  to  allow  a  carload 
of  wheat  to  keep  a  carload  of  soldiers  from  reaching 


124  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  front,  or  to  let  food  for  Belgians  keep  the  men  in 
the  trenches  from  getting  theirs  regularly.  Horse 
and  cart  transport  would  be  cumbersome,  and  the  Ger- 
mans would  not  permit  Belgian  teamsters  to  move 
about  with  such  freedom.  As  hkely  as  not  they  might 
be  spies. 

Anybody  who  can  walk  or  ride  may  be  a  spy. 
Therefore,  the  way  to  stop  spying  is  not  to  let  any  one 
walk  or  ride.  Besides,  Germany  had  requisitioned 
most  of  the  horses  that  could  do  more  than  draw  an 
empty  phaeton  on  a  level.  But  she  had  not  drawn 
the  water  out  of  the  canals;  though  the  Belgians,  al- 
ways whispering  jokes  at  the  expense  of  the  conquer- 
ors, said  that  the  canals  might  have  been  emptied  if 
their  contents  had  been  beer.  There  were  plenty  of 
idle  boats  in  Holland,  whose  canals  connect  with  the 
web  of  canals  in  Belgium.  You  had  only  to  seal  the 
cargoes  against  requisition,  the  seal  to  be  broken  only 
by  a  representative  of  the  Relief  Commission,  and 
start  them  to  their  destination. 

And  how  make  sure  that  only  those  who  had  money 
should  pay  for  their  bread,  while  all  who  had  not 
should  be  reached?  The  solution  was  simple  com- 
pared to  the  distribution  of  relief  after  the  San  Fran- 
cisco earthquake  and  fire,  for  example,  in  our  own 
land,  where  a  scantier  population  makes  social  or- 
ganisation comparatively  loose. 

The  people  to  be  relieved  were  in  their  homes. 
Belgium  is  so  old  a  country,  her  population  so  dense, 
and  she  is  so  much  like  one  big  workshop,  that  the 
Government  must  keep  a  complete  set  of  books. 
Every  Belgian  is  registered  and  docketed.  You  know 
just  how  he  makes  his  living  and  where  he  lives. 
Upon  marriage  a  Belgian  gets  a  little  book,  giving  his 


BELGIUM  UNDER  THE  GERMANS     125 

name  and  his  wife's,  their  ages,  their  occupations,  and 
address.  As  children  are  born  their  names  are  added. 
A  Belgian  holds  as  fast  to  this  book  as  a  woman  to  a 
piece  of  jewellery  that  is  an  heirloom. 

With  few  exceptions,  Belgian  local  officials  had  not 
fled  the  country.  They  realised  that  this  was  a  time 
when  they  were  particularly  needed  on  the  job  to  pro- 
tect the  people  from  German  exactions  and  from  their 
own  rashness.  There  were  also  any  number  of  vol- 
unteers. The  thing  was  to  get  the  food  to  them  and 
let  them  organise  local  distribution. 

The  small  force  of  Americans  required  to  oversee 
the  transit  must  both  watch  that  the  Germans  did  not 
take  any  of  the  food  and  retain  both  British  and  Ger- 
man confidence  in  the  absolute  good  faith  of  their  in- 
tentions. The  volunteers  got  their  expenses  and  the 
rest  of  their  reward  was  experience ;  and  it  was  "  some 
experience  "  as  a  Belgian  said,  who  was  learning  a 
little  American  slang.  They  talked  about  canal-boat 
cargoes  as  if  they  had  been  from  Buffalo  to  Albany  on 
the  Erie  Canal  for  years;  they  spoke  of  "my  prov- 
ince "  and  compared  bread  lines  and  the  efficiency  of 
local  officials.  And  the  Germans  took  none  of  the 
food;  orders  from  Berlin  were  obeyed.  Berlin  knew 
that  any  requisitioning  of  relief  supplies  meant  that 
the  Relief  Commission  would  cease  work  and  announce 
to  the  world  the  reason. 

However  many  times  the  Americans  were  arrested 
they  must  be  patient.  That  exception  who  said,  when 
he  was  put  in  a  cell  overnight  because  he  entered  the 
military  zone  by  mistake,  that  he  would  not  have 
been  treated  that  way  in  England,  needed  a  little  more 
coaching  in  preserving  his  mask  of  neutralit)^  For  I 
must  say  that  nine  out  of  ten  of  these  young  men, 


126  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

leaning  over  backward  to  be  neutral,  were  pro-Ally, 
including  some  with  German  names.  But  publicly 
you  could  hardly  get  an  admission  out  of  them  that 
there  was  any  war.  As  for  Harvard,  19 14,  hand  a 
passport  carried  around  the  Sphinx's  neck  and  you 
have  him  done  in  stone. 

Fancy  any  Belgian  trying  to  get  him  to  carry  a 
contraband  letter  or  a  German  commander  trying  to 
work  him  for  a  few  sacks  of  flour!  When  I  asked 
him  what  career  he  had  chosen  he  said,  "  Business!  " 
without  any  waste  of  words.  I  think  that  he  will  suc- 
ceed in  a  way  to  surprise  his  family.  It  is  he  and  all 
those  young  Americans  of  which  he  is  a  type,  as  dis- 
tinctive of  America  in  manner,  looks,  and  thought  as 
a  Frenchman  is  of  France  or  a  German  of  Germany, 
who  carried  the  torch  of  Peace's  kindly  work  into 
war-ridden  Belgium.  They  made  you  want  to  tickle 
the  eagle  on  the  throat  so  he  would  let  out  a  gentle, 
well-modulated  scream,  of  course,  strictly  in  keeping 
with  neutrality. 

Red  lanterns  took  the  place  of  red  flags  swung  by 
Landsturm  sentries  on  the  run  to  Brussels  as  dark- 
ness fell.  There  was  no  relaxation  of  watchfulness 
at  night.  All  the  twenty-four  hours  the  systematic 
conquerors  held  the  net  tight.  Once  when  my  com- 
panion repeated  his  "  Again!  "  and  held  out  the  pass 
in  the  lantern's  rays,  I  broke  into  a  laugh,  which  ex- 
cited his  curiosity,  for  you  soon  get  out  of  the  habit 
of  laughing  in  Belgium. 

"  It  has  just  occurred  to  me  that  my  guidebook 
states  that  passports  are  not  required  in  Belgium!  "  I 
explained. 

The  editor  of  that  guidebook  will  have  a  busy  time 
before  he  issues  the  next  edition.     For  example,  he 


BELGIUM  UNDER  THE  GERMANS     127 

will  have  a  lot  of  new  Information  about  Malines, 
whose  ruins  were  revealed  by  the  motor  lamps  in 
shadowy,  broken  walls  on  either  side  of  the  main 
street.  Other  places  where  less  damage  had  been 
done  were  equally  silent.  In  the  smaller  towns  and 
villages  the  population  must  keep  indoors  at  night; 
for  egress  and  ingress  are  more  difficult  to  control 
there  than  in  large  cities,  where  guards  at  every 
corner  suffice  —  watching,  watching,  these  disciplined 
pawns  of  remorselessly  efficient  militarism;  watching 
every  human  being  in  Belgium. 

"  The  last  time  I  saw  that  statue  of  Uiege,"  I  re- 
marked, peering  into  the  darkness  as  we  rode  into  the 
city,  "  the  Legion  of  Honour  conferred  by  France  on 
Liege  for  Its  brave  defence  was  hung  on  Its  breast.  I 
suppose  it  is  gone  now." 

"  I  guess  yes,"  said  Harvard,  19 14. 

We  went  to  the  hotel  at  Brussels  which  I  had  left 
the  day  before  the  city's  fall.  English  railway  signs 
on  the  walls  of  the  corridor  had  not  been  disturbed. 
More  ancient  relic  still  seemed  a  bulletin  board  with 
its  announcement  of  seven  passages  a  day  to  England, 
traversing  the  Channel  in  '*  fifty-five  minutes  via  Ca- 
lais "  and  "  three  hours  via  Ostend,"  with  the  space 
blank  where  the  state  of  the  weather  for  the  despair 
or  the  delight  of  Intending  voyagers  had  been  chalked 
up  in  happier  days.  The  same  men  were  in  attend- 
ance at  the  office  as  before;  but  they  seemed  older  and 
their  politeness  that  of  cheerless  automatons.  For 
five  months  they  had  been  serving  German  officers  as 
guests  with  hate  In  their  hearts  and,  In  turn,  trying  to 
protect  their  property. 

A  story  is  told  of  how  that  hotel  had  filled  with 
officers  after  the  arrival  of  the  Germanic  flood  and 


128    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

how  one  day,  when  it  was  learned  that  the  proprietor 
was  a  Frenchman,  guards  were  suddenly  placed  at 
the  doors  and  the  hall  was  filled  with  baggage  as  every 
officer,  acting  with  characteristic  official  solidarity,  va- 
cated his  room  and  bestowed  his  presence  elsewhere. 
Then  the  proprietor  was  informed  that  his  guests 
would  return  if  he  would  agree  to  employ  German 
help  and  buy  his  supplies  from  Germany.  He  re- 
fused, for  practical  as  well  as  for  sentimental  reasons. 
If  he  had  consented,  think  what  the  Belgians  would 
have  done  to  him  after  the  Germans  were  gone! 
However,  officers  were  gradually  returning,  for  this 
was  the  best  hotel  in  town,  and  even  conquerors  are 
human  and  German  conquerors  have  particularly  hu- 
man stomachs. 


CHRISTMAS   IN   BELGIUM 

"A  man's  house  is  his  castle"  worth  fighting  for  —  Breakfast  in  a 
Belgian  hotel  —  Groups  of  the  conquerors — "News"  in  Belgium 
—  Companionship  at  mass  —  Business  at  a  standstill  —  A  Bel- 
gian bread  line  —  Workers  and  no  work  —  Methods  of  relief 
distribution  —  German  surveillance  —  Dinner  at  the  American 
legation — "When  would  the  Allies  come?" 

Christmas  In  Belgium  with  the  bayonet  and  the  wolf 
at  the  door  taught  one  to  value  Christmas  at  home  for 
more  than  Its  gifts  and  the  cheer  of  the  fireside.  It 
taught  him  what  it  meant  to  belong  to  a  free  people 
and  how  precious  is  that  old  England  saying  that  a 
man's  house  Is  his  castle,  which  was  the  Inception  of 
so  much  In  our  lives  that  we  accept  as  a  commonplace. 
If  such  a  commonplace  can  be  made  secure  only  by 
fighting,  then  it  is  best  to  fight.  At  any  time  a  foreign 
soldier  might  enter  the  house  of  a  Belgian  and  take 
him  away  for  trial  before  a  military  court. 

Breakfast  In  the  same  restaurant  as  before  the  city's 
fall!  Again  the  big  grapes  which  are  a  luxury  of 
the  rich  man's  table  or  an  extravagance  for  a  sick 
friend  with  us!  The  hothouses  still  grew  them. 
What  else  was  there  for  the  hothouses  to  do,  though 
the  export  of  their  products  was  Impossible  ?  A  short- 
age' of  the  long,  white-leafed  chicory  that  we  call  en- 
dive In  New  York  restaurants !  There  were  piles  of 
it  In  the  Brussels  market  and  on  the  hucksters'  carts ; 
nothing  so  cheap.     One  might  have  excellent  steaks 

and  roasts  and  delicious  veal;  for  the  heifers  were  be- 

129 


130    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ing  butchered,  as  the  Germans  had  taken  all  fodder. 
But  the  bread  was  the  Commission's  brown,  which 
every  one  had  to  eat.  Belgium,  growing  quality  on 
scanty  acres  with  intensive  farming,  had  food  luxuries 
but  not  the  staff  of  life. 

One  looked  out  of  the  windows  on  to  the  square 
which  four  months  before  he  had  seen  crowded  with 
people  bedecked  with  the  Allies'  colours  and  eagerly 
buying  the  latest  editions  containing  the  commiiniques 
of  hollow  optimism.  No  flag  in  sight  now  except  a 
German  flag  flying  over  the  station!  But  small  re- 
venges may  be  enjoyed.  A  German  soldier  tried  to 
jump  on  the  tail  of  a  cart  driven  by  a  Belgian;  but 
the  Belgian  whipped  up  his  horse  and  the  German  fell 
off  onto  the  pavement,  while  the  cart  sped  around  a 
corner. 

Out  of  the  station  came  a  score  of  German  soldiers 
returning  from  the  trenches,  on  their  way  to  barracks 
to  regain  strength  so  that  they  could  bear  the  ordeal 
of  standing  in  icy  water  again.  They  were  not  the 
kind  exhibited  on  press  tours  to  illustrate  the  "  vigour 
of  our  indomitable  army."  Eyelids  drooped  over 
hollow  eye-sockets ;  sore,  numbed  feet  moved  like  feet 
which  are  asleep  in  their  vain  effort  to  keep  step. 
Sensitiveness  to  surroundings,  almost  to  existence, 
seemed  to  have  been  lost. 

One  was  a  corporal,  young,  tall,  and  full-bearded. 
He  might  have  been  handsome  if  he  had  not  been  so 
haggard.  He  gave  the  lead  to  the  others;  he  seemed 
to  know  where  they  were  going,  and  they  shuffled  on 
after  him  in  dogged  painfulness.  Four  months  ago 
that  corporal,  with  the  spring  of  the  energy  of  youth 
when  the  war  was  young,  was  perhaps  in  the  green 
column  that  went  through  the  streets  of  Brussels  in  the 


CHRISTMAS  IN  BELGIUM  131 

thunderous  beat  of  their  regular  tread  on  the  way  to 
Paris.  The  group  was  an  object  lesson  in  how  much 
the  victor  must  suffer  in  war  in  order  to  make  his  vic- 
tim suffer. 

Some  officers  were  at  breakfast,  too.  Mostly  they 
were  reservists;  mostly  bespectacled,  with  middle  age 
swelling  their  girth  and  hollowing  their  chests,  but 
sturdy  enough  to  apply  the  regulations  made  for  con- 
duct of  the  conquered.  While  stronger  men  were 
under  shell-fire  at  the  front,  they  were  under  the  fire 
of  Belgian  hate  as  relentless  as  their  own  hate  of  Eng- 
land. You  saw  them  always  in  the  good  restaurants, 
but  never  in  the  company  of  Belgians,  these  ostracised 
rulers.  In  four  months  they  had  made  no  friends;  at 
least,  no  friends  who  would  appear  with  them  in  pub- 
lic. A  few  thousand  guards  in  Belgium  in  the  com- 
panionship of  conquest  and  seven  million  Belgians  in 
the  companionship  of  a  common  helplessness!  Bay- 
.  onets  may  make  a  man  silent,  but  they  cannot  stop  his 
thinking. 

At  the  breakfast  table  on  that  Christmas  morning 
in  London,  Paris,  or  Berlin  the  patriot  could  find  the 
kind  of  news  that  he  liked.  His  racial  and  national 
predilections  and  animosities  were  solaced.  If  there 
were  good  news  it  was  "  played  up  ";  if  there  were 
bad  news,  it  was  not  published,  or  it  was  explained. 
L'Echo  Beige  and  L' Independence  Beige,  and  all  the 
Brussels  papers  were  either  out  of  business  or  being 
issued  as  single  sheets  in  Holland  and  England. 

The  Belgian,  keenest  of  all  the  peoples  at  war  for 
news,  having  less  occupation  to  keep  his  mind  off  the 
war,  must  read  the  newspapers  established  under  Ger- 
man auspices,  which  fed  him  with  the  pabulum  that 
German  chefs  provided,  reflective  of  the  stumbling  de- 


132  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

generacy  of  England,  French  weariness  of  the  war, 
Russian  clumsiness,  and  the  invincibility  of  Germany. 
If  an  Englishman  had  to  read  German,  or  a  German 
English,  newspapers  every  morning  he  might  have 
understood  how  the  Belgian  felt. 

Those  who  had  sons  or  fathers  or  husbands  in  the 
Belgian  army  could  not  send  or  receive  letters,  let 
alone  presents.  Families  scattered  in  different  parts 
of  Belgium  could  not  hold  reunions.  But  at  mass  I 
saw  a  Belgian  standard  in  the  centre  of  the  church. 
That  flag  was  proscribed,  but  the  priests  knew  it  was 
safe  in  that  sacred  place  and  the  worshippers  might 
feast  their  eyes  on  it  as  they  said  their  aves. 

A  Bavarian  soldier  came  in  softly  and  stood  a  little 
apart  from  others,  many  In  mourning,  at  the  rear,  a 
man  who  was  of  the  same  faith  as  the  Belgians  and 
who  crossed  himself  with  the  others  in  the  house  of 
brotherly  love.  He  would  go  outside  to  obey  orders; 
and  the  others  to  nurse  their  hate  of  him  and  his  race. 
This  private  in  his  faded  green,  bowing  his  head  be- 
fore that  flag  in  the  shadows  of  the  nave,  was  war- 
sick,  as  most  soldiers  were;  and  the  Belgians  were 
heartsick.  They  had  the  one  solace  In  common.  But 
if  you  had  suggested  to  him  to  give  up  Belgium,  his 
answer  would  have  been  that  of  the  other  Germans: 
"  Not  after  all  we  have  suffered  to  take  it!  "  Chris- 
tians have  a  peculiar  way  of  applying  Christianity. 
Yet  if  it  were  not  for  Christianity  and  that  infernal 
thing  called  the  world's  opinion,  which  did  not  exist 
in  the  days  of  Caesar  and  the  Belgil,  the  Belgians 
might  have  been  worse  off  than  they  were.  More  of 
them  might  have  been  dead.  When  they  were  say- 
ing, "  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread  "  they  were 


CHRISTMAS  IN  BELGIUM  133 

thinking,  "  An  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth," 
if  ever  their  turn  came. 

A  satirist  might  have  repeated  the  apocryphal 
naivete  of  Marie  Antoinette,  who  asked  why  the  peo- 
ple wanted  bread  when  they  could  buy  such  nice  cakes 
for  a  sou.  For  all  the  patisseries  were  open.  Brus- 
sels is  famous  for  its  French  pastry.  With  a  store  of 
preserves,  why  shouldn't  the  bakeshops  go  on  making 
tarts  with  heavy  crusts  of  the  brown  flour,  when  war 
had  not  robbed  the  bakers  of  their  art?  It  gave  work 
to  them;  it  helped  the  shops  to  keep  open  and  make 
a  show  of  normality.  But  I  noticed  that  they  were 
doing  little  business.  Stocks  were  small  and  bravely 
displayed.  Only  the  rich  could  afford  such  luxuries, 
which  in  ordinary  times  were  what  ice  cream  cones 
are  to  us.  Even  the  jewellery  shops  were  open,  with 
diamond  rings  flashing  in  the  windows. 

"  You  must  pay  rent;  you  don't  want  to  discharge 
your  employees,"  said  a  jeweller.  "  There  is  no  place 
to  go  except  your  shop.  If  you  closed  it  would  look 
as  if  you  were  afraid  of  the  Germans.  It  would 
make  you  blue  and  the  people  in  the  street  blue.  One 
tries  to  go  through  the  motions  of  normal  existence, 
anyway.  But,  of  course,  you  don't  sell  anything. 
This  week  I  have  repaired  a  locket  which  carried  the 
portrait  of  a  soldier  at  the  front  and  I've  put  a  main- 
spring in  a  watch.  I'll  warrant  that  is  more  than  some 
of  my  competitors  have  done." 

Swing  around  the  circle  in  Brussels  of  a  winter's 
morning  and  look  at  the  only  crowds  that  the  Germans 
allow  to  gather,  and  any  doubt  that  Belgium  would 
have  gone  hungry  if  she  had  not  received  provisions 
from  the  outside  was  dispelled.     Whenever  I  think  of 


134    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

a  bread  line  again  I  shall  see  the  faces  of  a  Belgian 
bread  line.  They  blot  out  the  memory  of  those  at 
home,  where  men  are  free  to  go  and  come ;  where  war 
has  not  robbed  the  thrifty  of  food. 

It  was  fitting  that  the  great  central  soup  kitchen 
should  be  established  in  the  central  express  office  of 
the  city.  For  in  Belgium  these  days  there  is  no  ex- 
press business  except  in  German  troops  to  the  front 
and  wounded  to  the  rear.  The  despatch  of  parcels  is 
stopped,  no  less  than  the  other  channels  of  trade,  in  a 
country  where  trade  was  so  rife,  a  country  that  lived 
by  trade.  On  the  stone  floor,  where  once  packages 
were  arranged  for  forwarding  to  the  towns  whose 
names  are  on  the  walls,  were  many  great  cauldrons  in 
clusters  of  three,  to  economise  space  and  fuel. 

"  We  don't  lack  cooks,"  said  a  chef,  who  had  been  in 
a  leading  hotel.  "  So  many  of  us  are  out  of  work. 
Our  society  of  hotel  and  restaurant  keepers  took 
charge.  We  know  the  practical  side  of  the  business. 
I  suppose  you  have  the  same  kind  of  a  society  in  New 
York  and  would  turn  to  it  for  help  if  the  Germans  oc- 
cupied New  York." 

He  gave  me  a  printed  report  in  which  I  read,  for  ex- 
ample, that  "  M.  Arndt,  professor  of  the  £cole  Nor- 
male,  had  been  good  enough  to  take  charge  of  ac- 
counts," and  "  M.  Catteau  had  been  specially  ap- 
pointed to  look  after  the  distribution  of  bread." 

Most  appetising  that  soup  prepared  under  direction 
of  the  best  chefs  in  the  city.  The  meat  and  green 
vegetables  in  it  were  Belgian  and  the  peas  American. 
Steaming  hot  in  big  cans  it  was  sent  to  the  communal 
centres,  where  lines  of  people  with  pots,  pitchers,  and 
pails  waited  to  receive  their  daily  allowance.  A  de- 
mocracy was  in  that  bread  line  such  as  I  have  never 


CHRISTMAS  IN  BELGIUM  135 

seen  anywhere  except  at  San  Francisco  after  the  earth- 
quake. Each  person  had  a  blue  or  a  yellow  ticket, 
with  numbers  to  be  punched,  like  a  commuter.  The 
blue  tickets  were  for  those  who  had  proved  to  the  com- 
munal authorities  that  they  could  not  pay;  the  yellow 
for  those  who  paid  five  centimes  for  each  person 
served.  A  flutter  of  blue  and  yellow  tickets  all  over 
Belgium,  and  in  return  life !  With  each  serving  of 
soup  went  a  loaf  of  the  American  brown  bread.  The 
faces  in  the  line  were  not  those  of  people  starving  — 
they  had  been  saved  from  starvation.  There  was 
none  of  the  emaciation  which  pictures  of  famine  in  the 
Orient  have  made  familiar;  but  they  were  pinched 
faces,  bloodless  faces,  the  faces  of  people  on  short  ra- 
tions. 

To  the  Belgian  bread  is  not  only  the  staff  of  life;  it 
Is  the  legs.  At  home  we  think  of  bread  as  something 
that  goes  with  the  rest  of  the  meal;  to  the  poorer 
classes  of  Belgians  the  rest  of  the  meal  is  something 
that  goes  with  bread.  To  you  and  me  food  has  meant 
the  payment  of  money  to  the  baker  and  the  butcher  and 
the  grocer,  or  the  hotelkeeper.  You  get  your  money 
by  work  or  from  investments.  What  if  there  were  no 
bread  to  be  had  for  work  or  money?  Sitting  on  a 
mountain  of  gold  in  the  desert  of  Sahara  would  not 
quench  thirst. 

Three  hundred  grams,  a  minimum  calculation  — 
about  half  what  the  British  soldier  gets  —  was  the 
ration.  That  small  boy  sent  by  his  mother  got  five 
loaves;  his  ticket  called  for  an  allowance  for  a  family 
of  five.  An  old  woman  got  one  loaf,  for  she  was 
alone  in  the  world.  Each  one  as  he  hurried  by  had  a 
personal  story  of  what  war  had  meant  to  him.  They 
answered  your   questions  frankly^i  gladly,   with   the 


136  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Belgian  cheerfulness  which  was  amazing  considering 
the  circumstances.  A  tall,  distlngulshed-looking  man 
was  an  artist. 

'*  No  work  for  artists  these  days,"  he  said. 

No  work  In  a  community  of  workers  where  every 
link  of  the  chain  of  economic  life  had  been  broken. 
No  work  for  the  next  man,  a  chauffeur,  or  the  next,  a 
brass  worker;  the  next,  a  teamster;  the  next,  a  bank 
clerk;  the  next,  a  doorkeeper  of  a  Government  office; 
while  the  wives  of  those  who  still  had  work  were  buy- 
ing in  the  only  market  they  had.  But  the  husbands  of 
some  were  not  at  home.  Each  answer  about  the 
absent  one  had  an  appeal  that  nothing  can  picture  bet- 
ter than  the  simple  words  or  the  looks  that  accom- 
panied the  words. 

"  The  last  I  heard  of  my  husband  he  was  fighting  at 
DIxmude  —  two  months  ago." 

"  Mine  Is  wounded,  somewhere  In  France." 

"  Mine  was  with  the  army,  too.  I  don't  know 
whether  he  Is  alive  or  dead.  I  have  not  heard  since 
Brussels  was  taken.  He  cannot  get  my  letters  and  I 
cannot  get  his." 

"  Mine  was  killed  at  Liege,  but  we  have  a  son." 

So  you  out  in  Nebraska  who  gave  a  handful  of 
wheat  might  know  that  said  handful  of  wheat  reached 
its  destination  in  an  empty  stomach.  If  you  sent  a  suit 
of  clothes  or  a  cap  or  a  pair  of  socks,  come  along  to  the 
skating-rink,  where  ice  polo  was  played  and  matches 
and  carnivals  were  held  in  better  days,  and  look  on  at 
the  boxes,  packed  tight  with  gifts  of  every  manner  of 
thing  that  men  and  women  and  children  wear  except 
silk  hats,  which  are  being  opened  and  sorted  and  dis- 
tributed into  hastily  constructed  cribs  and  compart- 
ments. 


CHRISTMAS  IN  BELGIUM  137 

A  Belgian  woman  whose  father  was  one  of  Bel- 
gium's leading  lawyers  —  her  husband  was  at  the 
front  —  was  the  busy  head  of  this  organisation,  be- 
cause, as  she  said,  the  busier  she  was  the  more  it 
"  keeps  my  mind  off  — "  and  she  did  not  finish  the  sen- 
tence. How  many  times  I  heard  that  "  keeps  my  mind 
off  — "  a  sentence  that  was  the  more  telling  for  not 
being  finished.  She  and  some  other  women  began 
sewing  and  patching  and  collecting  garments;  "but 
our  business  grew  so  fast" — the  business  of  relief  is 
the  one  kind  in  Belgium  that  does  grow  these  days  — 
"  that  now  we  have  hundreds  of  helpers.  I  begin  to 
feel  that  I  am  what  you  would  call  in  America  a  cap- 
tainess  of  industry." 

Some  of  the  good  mothers  in  America  were  a  little 
too  thoughtful  in  their  kindness.  An  odour  in  a  box 
that  had  evidently  travelled  across  the  Atlantic  close 
to  the  ship's  boilers  was  traced  to  the  pocket  of  a  boy's 
suit,  which  contained  the  hardly  distinguishable  re- 
mains of  a  ham  sandwich,  meant  to  be  ready  to  hand 
for  the  hungry  Belgian  boy  who  got  that  suit.  Bro- 
ken pots  of  jam  were  quite  frequent.  But  no  matter. 
Soap  and  water  and  Belgian  industry  saved  the  suit, 
if  not  the  sandwich.  Sweaters  and  underclothes  and 
overcoats  almost  new  and  shiny,  old  frock  coats  and 
trousers  with  holes  in  seat  and  knees  might  represent 
equal  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  some  American  three 
thousand  miles  away,  and  all  were  welcome.  Needle- 
women were  given  work  cutting  up  the  worn-outs  of 
grown-ups  and  making  them  over  into  astonishingly 
good  suits  or  dresses  for  youngsters. 

"  We've  really  turned  the  rink  into  a  kind  of  de- 
partment store,"  said  the  lady.  "  Come  into  our  boot 
department.     We  had  some  leather  left  in  Belgium 


138    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

that  the  Germans  did  not  requisition,  so  we  bought  it 
and  that  gave  more  Belgians  work  in  the  shoe  facto- 
ries. Work,  you  see,  is  what  we  want  to  keep 
our  minds  off  — " 

Blue  and  yellow  tickets  here,  too!  Boots  for  chil- 
dren and  thick-set  working  women  and  watery-eyed  old 
men  1  And  each  was  required  to  leave  behind  the  pau 
he  was  wearing. 

"  Sometimes  we  can  patch  up  the  cast-offs,  which 
means  work  for  the  cobblers,"  said  the  captainess  of 
industry.  "And  who  are  our  clerks?  Why,  the 
people  who  put  on  the  skates  for  the  patrons  of  the 
rink,  of  course !  " 

One  could  write  volumes  on  this  systematic  relief 
work,  the  businesslike  industry  of  succouring  Belgium 
by  the  businesslike  Belgians,  with  American  help. 
Certainly  one  cannot  leave  out  those  old  men  strag- 
glers from  Louvain  and  Bruges  and  Ghent  —  vener- 
able children  with  no  offspring  to  give  them  paternal 
care  —  who  took  their  turn  in  getting  bread,  which 
they  soaked  thoroughly  in  their  soup  for  reasons  that 
would  be  no  military  secret,  not  even  in  the  military 
zone.  On  Christmas  Day  an  American,  himself  a 
smoker,  thinking  what  class  of  children  he  could  make 
happiest  on  a  limited  purse,  remembered  the  ring 
around  the  stove  and  bought  a  basket  of  cheap  briar 
pipes  and  tobacco.  By  Christmas  night  some  tooth- 
less gums  were  sore,  but  a  beatific  smile  of  satiation 
played  in  white  beards. 

Nor  can  one  leave  out  the  very  young  babies  at 
home,  who  get  their  milk  if  grown  people  don't,  and 
the  older  babies  beyond  milk  but  not  yet  old  enough 
for  bread  and  meat,  whose  mothers  return  from  the 
bread  line  to  bring  their  children  to  another  line,  where 


CHRISTMAS  IN  BELGIUM  139 

they  got  portions  of  a  sirupy  mixture  which  those  who 
know  say  Is  the  right  provender.  On  such  occasions 
men  are  quite  helpless.  They  can  only  look  on  with 
a  frog  in  the  throat  at  pale,  improperly  nourished 
mothers  with  bundles  of  potential  manhood  and 
womanhood  In  their  arms.  For  this  was  woman's 
work  for  woman.  Belgian  women  of  every  class 
joined  in  It:  the  competent  wife  of  a  workman,  or  the 
wife  of  a  millionaire  who  had  to  walk  like  everybody 
else  now  that  her  automobile  was  requisitioned  by  the 
army. 

Pop-eyed  children,  ruddy-cheeked,  aggressive  chil- 
dren, pinched-faced  children,  kept  warm  by  sweaters 
that  some  American  or  English  children  spared,  happy 
in  that  they  did  not  know  what  their  elders  knew !  Not 
the  danger  of  physical  starvation  so  much  as  the  actual 
presence  of  mental  starvation  was  the  thing  that  got 
on  our  nerves  in  a  land  where  the  sun  Is  seldom  seen 
in  winter  and  rainy  days  are  the  rule.  It  was  bad 
enough  In  the  "  zone  of  occupation,"  so  called,  a  line 
running  from  Antwerp  past  Brussels  to  Mons.  One 
could  guess  what  it  was  like  In  the  military  zone  to  the 
westward,  where  only  an  occasional  American  relief 
representative  might  go. 

This  Is  not  saying  that  the  Germans  were  stricter 
than  necessary,  if  we  excuse  the  exasperation  of  their 
militarism.  In  order  to  prevent  information  from  pass- 
ing out  when  a  multitude  of  Belgians  would  have  risked 
their  lives  gladly  to  help  the  Allies.  One  spy  bringing 
accurate  Information  might  cost  the  German  army 
thousands  of  casualties;  perhaps  decide  the  fate  of  a 
campaign.  They  saw  the  Belgians  as  enemies.  They 
were  fighting  to  take  the  lives  of  their  enemies  and  save 
their  own  lives,  which  made  it  tough  for  them  and  for 


140  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  French  and  the  British  —  tough  all  round,  but  very 
particularly  tough  for  Belgians. 

It  was  good  for  a  vagrant  American  to  dine  at  the 
American  Legation,  where  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Whitlock 
were  far,  very  far,  from  the  days  in  Toledo,  Ohio, 
where  he  was  mayor.  Some  said  that  the  place  of  the 
Minister  to  Belgium  was  at  Havre,  where  the  Belgian 
Government  had  its  offices;  but  neither  Whitlock  nor 
the  Belgian  people  thought  so,  nor  the  German  Gov- 
ernment, of  late,  since  they  had  realised  his  prestige 
with  the  Belgians  and  how  they  would  listen  to  him  in 
any  crisis  when  their  passions  might  break  the  bonds 
of  wisdom.  Hugh  Gibson,  being  the  omnipresent  Sec- 
retary of  Legation  in  four  languages,  naturally  was 
also  present.  We  recalled  dining  together  in  Hon- 
duras, when  he  was  in  the  thick  of  vexations. 

Trouble  accommodatingly  waits  for  him  wherever 
he  goes,  because  he  has  a  gift  for  taking  care  of 
trouble,  in  the  ascendency  of  a  cheerful  spirit  and  much 
knowledge  of  international  law.  His  present  for  the 
Minister  who  daily  received  stacks  of  letters  from  all 
sources  asking  the  impossible,  as  well  as  from  Ameri- 
cans who  wanted  to  be  sure  that  the  food  they  gave 
was  not  being  purloined  by  the  Germans,  was  a  rubber 
stamp,  "  Blame-it-all  —  there's-a-state-of-war-in-Bel- 
gium!  "  which  he  suggested  might  save  typewriting  — 
a  recommendation  which  the  Minister  refused  to  ac- 
cept, not  to  Gibson's  surprise. 

On  that  Christmas  afternoon  and  evening,  the 
people  promenaded  the  streets  as  usual.  You  might 
have  thought  it  a  characteristic  Christmas  afternoon 
or  evening  except  for  the  Landsturm  patrols.  But 
there  was  an  absence  of  the  old  gaiety,  and  they  were 


CHRISTMAS  IN  BELGIUM  141 

moving  as  If  from  habit  and  moving  was  all  there  was 
to  do. 

They  had  heard  the  sound  of  the  guns  at  Dixmude 
the  night  before.  Didn't  the  sound  seem  a  little 
nearer?  No.  The  wind  from  that  direction  was 
stronger.     When  ?     When  would  the  Allies  come  ? 


XI 

THE    FUTURE   OF   BELGIUM 

A  buffer  state  divided  in  itself  —  Her  ideals  those  of  prosperity  — 
False  sentiment  regarding  the  Belgians  —  Not  a  war-like  people 
—  Moral  force  of  her  plutocracy  —  Ruins  exaggerated  —  Ger- 
man policy  of  destruction — "Mass"  logic  —  A  military  occu- 
pancy, merciless  and  crafty — "  Reprisals  "  of  the  Belgians  —  Lou- 
vain —  The  bread  line  at  Liege  —  Politics  and  German  propa- 
ganda—  Her  Belgian  policy  worthy  of  England  at  her  best  — 
England  still  true  to  her  ideals. 

In  former  days  the  traveller  hardly  thought  of  Bel- 
gium as  possessing  patriotic  homogeneity.  It  was  a 
land  of  two  languages,  French  and  Flemish.  He  was 
puzzled  to  meet  people  who  looked  like  well-to-do 
mechanics,  artisans,  or  peasants  and  find  that  they 
could  not  answer  a  simple  question  in  French.  This 
explained  why  a  people  so  close  to  France,  though  they 
made  Brussels  a  little  Paris,  would  not  join  the  French 
family  and  enter  into  the  spirit  and  body  of  that  great 
civilisation  on  their  borders,  whose  language  was  that 
of  their  own  literature.  Belgium  seemed  to  have  no 
character.  Its  nationality  was  the  artificial  product  of 
European  politics;  a  buffer  divided  in  itself,  which 
would  be  neither  French  nor  German  nor  definitely 
Belgian. 

In  later  times  Belgium  had  prospered  enormously. 
It  had  developed  the  resources  of  the  Congo  in  a  way 
that  had  aroused  a  storm  of  criticism.  Old  King  Leo- 
pold made  the  most  of  his  neutral  position  to  gain  ad- 
vantages which  no  one  of  the  great  powers  might  enjoy 


THE  FUTURE  OF  BELGIUM         143 

because  of  jealousies.  The  International  Sleeplng- 
Car  Company  was  Belgian  and  Belgian  capitalists  se- 
cured concessions  here  and  there,  wherever  the  small 
tradesman  might  slip  into  openings  suitable  to  his  size. 
Leopold  was  not  above  crumbs;  he  made  them  profit- 
able. Leopold  liked  to  make  money  and  Belgium 
liked  to  make  money. 

Her  defence  guaranteed  by  neutrality,  Belgium  need 
have  no  thought  except  of  thrift.  Her  ideals  were 
those  of  prosperity.  No  ambition  of  national  expan- 
sion stirred  her  imagination  as  Germ.ay's  was  stirred; 
there  was  no  fire  in  her  soul  as  in  that  of  France  in 
apprehension  of  the  day  when  she  should  have  to  fight 
for  her  life  against  Germany;  no  national  cause  to 
harden  the  sinews  of  patriotism.  The  immensity  of 
her  urban  population  contributed  its  effect  in  depriving 
her  of  the  sterner  stuff  of  which  warriors  are  made. 
Success  meant  more  comforts  and  luxuries.  In  towns 
like  Brussels  and  Antwerp  this  doubtless  had  its  effect 
on  the  moralities,  which  were  hardly  of  the  New 
England  Puritan  standard.  She  had  a  small  standing 
army;  a  militia  system  in  the  process  of  reform  against 
the  conviction  of  the  majority,  unlike  that  of  the  Swiss 
mountaineers,  that  Belgium  would  never  have  any  need 
for  soldiers. 

If  militarism  means  conscription  as  it  exists  in 
France  and  Germany,  then  militarism  has  improved 
the  physique  of  races  in  an  age  when  people  are  leaving 
the  land  for  the  factory.  The  prospect  of  battle's 
test  unquestionably  developed  certain  sturdy  qualities 
in  a  people  which  can  and  ought  to  be  developed  in 
some  other  way  than  with  the  prospect  of  spending 
money  for  shells  to  kill  other  people. 

With  the  world  making  every  Belgian  man  a  hero 


144  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

and  the  unknowing  convinced  that  a  citizen  soldiery 
at  Liege  —  defended  by  the  Belgian  standing  army  — 
had  rushed  from  their  homes  with  rifles  and  beaten 
German  Infantry,  it  Is  right  to  repeat  that  the  ship- 
perke  spirit  was  not  universal,  that  at  no  time  had 
Belgium  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men 
under  arms,  and  that  on  the  DIxmude  line  she  main- 
tained never  more  than  eighty  thousand  men  out  of  a 
population  of  seven  millions,  which  should  yield  from 
seven  hundred  thousand  to  a  million;  while  they  lost  a 
good  deal  of  sympathy  both  in  England  and  in  France 
through  the  number  of  able-bodied  refugees  who  were 
disinclined  to  serve.  It  was  a  mistaken  Idealism  that 
swept  over  the  world  early  in  the  war,  characterising 
a  whole  nation  with  the  gallantry  of  its  young  king  and 
his  little  army. 

The  spirit  of  the  Boers  or  of  the  Minute  Men  at 
Lexington  was  not  in  the  Belgian  people.  It  could  not 
be  from  their  very  situation  and  method  of  life.  They 
did  not  believe  in  war;  they  did  not  expect  to  prac- 
tice war;  but  war  came  to  them  out  of  the  still 
blue  heavens,  as  It  came  to  the  prosperous  Incas  of 
Peru. 

Where  one  was  wrong  was  In  his  expectation  that 
her  bankers  and  capitalists  —  an  aristocracy  of  money 
not  given  to  the  simple  life  —  and  her  manufacturers, 
artisans,  and  traders,  if  not  her  peasants,  would  soon 
make  truce  with  Caesar  for  individual  profit.  Therein, 
Belgium  showed  that  she  was  not  lacking  In  the  moral 
spirit  which,  with  the  shipperke's,  became  a  fighting 
spirit.  It  seemed  as  If  the  metal  of  many  Belgians, 
struck  to  a  white  heat  In  the  furnace  of  war,  had  cooled 
under  German  occupation  to  the  tempered  steel  of  a 
new  nationalism. 


THE  FUTURE  OF  BELGIUM         145 

When  you  travelled  over  Belgium  after  It  was 
pacified,  the  logic  of  German  methods  became  clear. 
What  was  haphazard  in  their  reign  of  terror  was  due 
to  the  inevitable  excesses  of  a  soldiery  taking  the  calcu- 
lated redress  ordered  by  superiors  as  licence  in  the  first 
red  passion  of  war  to  a  war-mad  nation,  which  was 
sullen  because  the  Belgians  had  not  given  up  the  keys 
of  the  gate  to  France. 

The  extent  of  the  ruins  in  Belgium  east  of  the  Yser 
has  been  exaggerated.  They  were  the  first  ruins,  most 
photographed,  most  advertised;  bad  enough,  inexcus- 
able enough,  and  warrantedly  causing  a  spell  of  horror 
throughout  the  civilised  world.  We  have  heard  all 
about  them,  mind,  while  hearing  nothing  about  those  in 
Lorraine,  where  the  Bavarians  exceeded  Prussian  ruth- 
lessness  in  reprisals.  I  mean,  that  to  have  read  the 
newspapers  in  early  September,  19 14,  one  would  have 
thought  that  half  the  towns  of  Belgium  were  debris, 
while  the  truth  is  that  only  a  small  percentage  are  — 
those  in  the  path  of  the  German  army's  advance. 
Two-thirds  of  Louvain  itself  is  unharmed;  though  the 
fact  alone  of  its  venerable  library  being  in  ashes  is 
sufficient  outrage,  if  not  another  building  had  been 
harmed. 

The  German  army  planned  destruction  with  all  the 
regularity  that  it  billeted  troops,  or  requisitioned  sup- 
plies, or  laid  war  indemnities.  It  did  not  destroy  by 
shells  exclusively.  It  deliberately  burned  homes. 
No  matter  whether  the  owners  were  Innocent  or  not, 
the  homes  were  burned  as  an  example.  The  principle 
applied  was  that  of  punishing  half  a  dozen  or  all 
the  boys  in  the  class  in  the  hope  of  getting  the  real 
culprit. 

Cold  ruins  mark  blocks  where  sniping  was  thought 


146  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  have  occurred.  The  Germans  insist  that  theirs  was 
the  merciful  way.  Krieg  ist  Krieg.  When  a  hundred 
citizens  of  Louvain  were  gathered  and  shot  because 
they  were  the  first  citizens  of  Louvain  to  hand,  the  pur- 
pose was  security  of  the  mass  at  the  expense  of  the 
individual,  according  to  the  war-is-war  machine  reason- 
ing. No  doubt  there  was  firing  on  German  troops  by 
civlhans.  What  did  the  Germans  expect  after  the  way 
that  they  had  Invaded  Belgium?  If  they  had  both- 
ered with  trials  and  investigations,  the  conquerors  say, 
sniping  would  have  kept  up.  They  may  have  taken 
innocent  lives  and  burned  the  homes  of  the  innocent, 
they  admit;  but  their  defence  is  that  thereby  they  saved 
many  thousands  of  their  soldiers  and  of  Belgians,  and 
prevented  the  feud  between  the  rulers  and  the  ruled 
from  becoming  more  embittered. 

Sniping  over,  the  next  step  In  policy  was  to  keep  the 
population  quiet  with  the  minimum  of  soldiery,  which 
would  permit  a  maximum  at  the  front.  In  a  thickly- 
settled  country,  so  easily  policed.  In  a  land  with  the 
population  inured  to  peace,  the  wisdom  of  keeping 
quiet  was  soon  evident  to  the  people.  What  if  Boers 
had  been  in  the  Belgians'  place?  Would  they  have 
attempted  guerrilla  warfare?  Would  you  or  I  want 
to  bring  destruction  on  neighbours  in  a  land  without 
any  rural  fastnesses  as  a  rendezvous  for  operations? 
One  could  tell  only  if  a  section  of  our  country  were 
invaded. 

A  burned  block  costs  less  than  a  dead  German 
soldier.  The  system  was  efficacious.  It  was  merci- 
lessness  mixed  with  craft.  When  Prussian  brusque- 
ness  was  found  to  be  unnecessarily  irritating  to  the  pop- 
ulation, causing  rash  Belgians  to  turn  desperate,  the 
elders  of  the  Saxon  and  Bavarian  co-religionists  were 


THE  FUTURE  OF  BELGIUM         147 

called  in.  They  were  amiable  fathers  of  families,  who 
would  obey  orders  without  taking  the  law  into  their 
own  hands.  The  occupation  was  strictly  military.  It 
concerned  itself  with  the  business  of  national  suffoca- 
tion. All  the  functions  of  the  national  Government 
were  In  German  hands.  But  Belgian  policemen 
guided  the  street  traffic,  arrested  culprits  for  ordinary 
misdemeanours,  and  took  them  before  Belgian  judges. 
This  concession,  which  also  meant  a  saving  in  soldiers, 
only  aggravated  to  the  Belgian  the  regulations  directed 
against  his  personal  freedom. 

"  Eat,  drink,  and  live  as  usual.  Go  to  your  own 
police  courts  for  misdemeanours,"  was  the  German 
edict  in  a  word;  "  but  remember  that  ours  is  the  mili' 
tary  power,  and  no  act  that  aids  the  enemy,  that  helps 
the  cause  of  Belgium  in  this  war,  is  permitted.  Ob- 
serve that  particular  affiche  about  a  spy,  please.  He 
was  shot." 

At  every  opportunity  the  Belgians  were  told  that  the 
British  and  the  French  could  never  come  to  their 
rescue.  The  Allies  were  beaten.  It  was  the  British 
who  got  Belgium  into  trouble;  the  British  who  were 
responsible  for  the  Idleness,  the  penury,  the  hunger, 
and  the  suffering  In  Belgium.  The  British  had  used 
Belgium  as  a  cat's-paw;  then  they  had  deserted  her. 
But  Belgians  remained  mostly  unconvinced.  They 
were  making  war  with  mind  and  spirit.  If  not  with 
arms. 

"  We  know  how  to  suffer  In  Belgium,"  said  a  Bel- 
gian jurist.  "  Our  ability  to  suffer  and  to  hold  fast  to 
our  hearths  has  kept  us  going  through  the  centuries. 
Flemish  and  French,  we  have  stubbornness  In  com- 
mon. Now  a  ruffian  has  come  Into  our  house  and 
taken  us  by  the  throat.     He  can  choke  us  to  death,  or 


148    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

he  can  slowly  starve  us  to  death,  but  he  cannot  make 
us  yield.     No,  we  shall  never  forgive !  " 

"  You,  too,  hate,  then?  "  I  asked. 

"  Of  course  I  hate.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life 
I  know  what  it  is  to  hate;  and  so  do  my  countrymen. 
I  begin  to  enjoy  my  hate.  It  is  one  of  the  privileges 
of  our  present  existence.  We  cannot  stand  on  chairs 
and  tables  as  they  do  in  Berlin  cafes  and  sing  our  hate, 
but  no  one  can  stop  our  hating  in  secret." 

Beside  the  latest  verboten  and  regulation  of  Bel- 
gian conduct  on  the  city  walls  were  posted  German  offi- 
cial news  bulletins.  The  Belgians  stopped  to  read; 
they  paused  to  reread.  And  these  were  the  rare  oc- 
casions when  they  smiled,  and  they  liked  to  have  a  Ger- 
man sentry  see  that  smile. 

"Pour  les  enfants!"  they  whispered,  as  if  talking 
to  one  another  about  a  creche.  Little  ones,  be  good ! 
Here  is  a  new  fairy  tale ! 

When  a  German  wanted  to  buy  something  he  got 
frigid  politeness  and  attention  —  very  frigid,  telling 
politeness  —  from  the  clerk,  which  said: 

"  Beast!  Invader!  I  do  not  ask  you  to  buy,  but 
as  you  ask,  I  sell;  and  as  I  sell  I  hate!  I  hate!!  I 
hate!!!" 

An  officer  entering  a  shop  and  seeing  a  picture  of 
King  Albert  on  the  wall,  said : 

"  The  orders  are  to  take  that  down !  " 

"But  don't  you  love  your  Kaiser?"  asked  the 
woman,  who  kept  the  shop. 

"  Certainly !  " 

"  And  I  love  my  King!  "  was  the  answer.  "  I  like 
to  look  at  his  picture  just  as  much  as  you  like  to  look  at 
your  Kaiser's." 


THE  FUTURE  OF  BELGIUM         149 

"  I  had  not  thought  of  It  In  that  way!  "  said  the 
officer. 

Indeed,  It  Is  very  hard  for  any  conqueror  to  think  of 
it  In  that  way.     So  the  picture  remained  on  the  wall. 

How  many  soldiers  would  It  take  to  enforce  the 
regulation  that  no  Belgian  was  to  wear  the  Belgian 
colours?  Imagine  thousands  and  thousands  of  Land- 
sturm  men  moving  about  and  plucking  King  Albert's 
face  or  the  black,  yellow  and  red  from  Belgian  button- 
holes !  No  sooner  would  a  buttonhole  be  cleared  in 
front  than  the  emblem  would  appear  In  a  buttonhole 
In  the  rear.  The  Landsturm  would  face  counter, 
flank,  frontal,  and  rear  attacks  In  a  most  amusing  mili- 
tary mancEuvre,  which  would  put  those  middle-aged 
conquerors  fearfully  out  of  breath  and  be  rare  sport 
for  the  Belgians.  You  could  not  arrest  the  whole 
population  and  lead  them  off  to  jail;  and  if  you  bayo- 
neted a  few  —  which  really  those  phlegmatic,  comfort- 
able old  Landsturms  would  not  have  the  heart  to  do 
for  such  a  little  thing  —  why,  It  would  get  Into  the 
American  press  and  the  Berlin  Foreign  Office  would 
say: 

"  There  you  are,  you  soldiers,  breaking  all  the  crock- 
ery again!  " 

In  the  smaller  towns,  where  the  Germans  were  bil- 
leted in  Belgian  houses,  of  course  the  hosts  had  to 
serve  their  unwelcome  guests. 

"  Yet  we  managed  to  let  them  know  what  was  In  our 
hearts,"  said  one  woman.  "  Some  tried  to  be  friendly. 
They  said  they  had  wives  and  children  at  home;  and 
we  said :  '  How  glad  your  wives  and  children  would 
be  to  see  you!     Why  don't  you  go  home?  '  " 

When  a  report  reached  the  commander  in  Ghent 


150    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

that  an  old  man  had  concealed  arms,  a  sergeant  with  a 
guard  was  sent  to  search  the  house. 

"  Yes,  my  son  has  a  rifle." 

"Where  Is  It?" 

"  In  his  hands  on  the  Yser,  If  he  Is  not  dead,  mon- 
sieur.    You  are  welcome  to  search,  monsieur." 

Belgium  was  developing  a  new  humour:  a  humour 
at  the  expense  of  the  Germans.  In  their  homes  they 
mimicked  their  rulers  as  freely  as  they  pleased.  To 
carry  mimicry  Into  the  streets  meant  arrest  for  the  eld- 
ers, but  not  always  for  the  children.  You  have  heard 
the  story,  which  is  true,  of  how  some  gamins  put  car- 
rots in  old  bowler  hats  to  represent  the  spikes  of  Ger- 
man helmets,  and  at  their  leader's  command  of  "  On 
to  Paris !  "  did  a  goose-step  backwards.  There  is  an- 
other which  you  may  not  have  heard  of  a  small  boy 
who  put  on  grandfather's  spectacles,  a  pillow  under 
his  coat,  and  a  card  on  his  cap,  "  Officer  of  the  Land- 
sturm."  The  conquerors  had  enough  sense  not  to  In- 
terfere with  the  battalion  which  was  taking  Paris;  but 
the  pseudo-Landsturm  officer  was  chased  into  a  door- 
way and  got  a  cuff  after  his  placard  was  taken  away 
from  him. 

When  a  united  public  opinion  faces  bayonets  it  is  not 
altogether  helpless  to  reply.  By  the  atmospheric 
force  of  mass  it  enjoys  a  conquest  of  Its  own.  If  a 
German  officer  or  soldier  entered  a  street  car,  women 
drew  aside  In  a  way  to  indicate  that  they  did  not  want 
their  garments  contaminated.  People  walked  by  the 
sentries  in  the  streets  giving  them  room  as  you  would 
give  a  mangy  dog  room,  yet  as  if  they  did  not  see  the 
sentries;  as  if  no  sentries  existed. 

The  Germans  said  that  they  wanted  to  be  friendly. 
They  even  expressed  surprise  that  the  Belgians  would 


THE  FUTURE  OF  BELGIUM         151 

not  return  their  advances.  They  sent  out  invitations 
to  social  functions  in  Brussels,  but  no  one  came  —  not 
even  to  a  ball  given  by  the  soldiers  to  the  daughters  of 
the  poor.  Belgium  stared  its  inhospitality,  its  con- 
tempt, its  cynical  drolleries  at  the  invader. 

I  kept  thinking  of  a  story  I  heard  in  Alaska  of  a 
man  who  had  shown  himself  yellow  by  cheating  his 
partner  out  of  a  mine.  He  appeared  one  day  hungry 
at  a  cabin  occupied  by  half  a  dozen  men  who  knew 
him.  They  gave  him  food  and  a  bunk  that  night ;  they 
gave  him  breakfast;  they  even  carried  his  blanket  roll 
out  to  his  sled  and  harnessed  his  dogs  as  a  hint,  and 
saw  him  go  without  one  man  having  spoken  to  him. 
No  matter  if  that  man  believed  he  had  done  no  wrong, 
he  would  have  needed  a  rhinoceros'  hide  not  to  have 
felt  this  silence.  Such  treatment  the  Belgians  have 
giv-en  to  the  Germans,  except  that  they  furnished  the 
shelter  and  harnessed  the  team  under  duress,  as  they 
so  specifically  indicate  by  every  act.  No  wonder, 
then,  that  the  old  Landsturm  guards,  used  at  home  to 
saying  "  fVie  gehts? "  and  getting  a  cheery  answer 
from  the  people  they  massed  in  the  streets,  were 
lonely. 

Not  only  stubborn,  but  shrewd,  these  Belgians. 
Both  qualities  were  brought  out  in  the  officials  who  had 
to  deal  with  the  Germans,  particularly  in  the  small 
towns  and  where  destruction  had  been  worst.  Take, 
for  example,  M.  Nerincx,  of  Louvain,  who  has  energy 
enough  to  carry  him  buoyantly  through  an  American 
political  campaign,  speaking  from  morning  to  mid- 
night. He  had  been  in  America.  I  insisted  that  he 
ought  to  give  up  his  professorship,  get  naturalised,  and 
run  for  office  at  home.  I  know  that  he  would  soon  be 
mayor  of  a  town,  or  in  Congress. 


152    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

When  the  war  began  he  was  professor  of  interna- 
tional law  at  the  ancient  university  whose  walls  alone 
stand,  surrounding  the  ashes  of  its  priceless  volumes, 
across  from  the  ruined  cathedral.  With  the  burgo- 
master a  refugee  from  the  horrors  of  that  orgy,  he 
turned  man  of  action  on  behalf  of  the  demoralised  peo- 
ple of  the  town  with  a  thousand  homes  In  ruins.  Very 
lucky  the  client  in  Its  lawyer.  He  Is  the  kind  of  man 
who  makes  the  best  of  the  situation;  picks  up  the 
fragments  of  the  pitcher,  cements  them  together  with 
the  first  material  at  hand,  and  goes  for  more  milk. 
It  was  he  who  got  a  German  commander  to  sign  an 
agreement  not  to  "  kill,  burn,  or  plunder  "  any  more, 
and  the  signs  were  still  up  on  some  houses  saying  that 
"  This  house  is  not  to  be  burned  except  by  official  or- 
der." 

There  in  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  which  is  quite  un- 
harmed, he  had  his  office  within  reach  of  the  German 
cpmmander.  He  yielded  to  Csesar  and  protected  his 
own  people  day  in  and  day  out,  diplomatic,  watchful, 
Belgian.  And  he  was  cheerful.  What  other  people 
could  have  preserved  any  vestige  of  It!  Sometimes 
one  wondered  if  It  were  not  partly  due  to  an  absence 
of  keen  nerve-sensibilities,  or  to  some  other  of  the 
traits  which  are  a  product  of  the  Belgian  hothouse  and 
Belgian  inheritance. 

I  might  tell  you  about  M.  Nerincx's  currency  sys- 
tem; how  he  Issued  paper  promises  to  pay  when  he 
gave  employment  to  the  Idle  in  repairing  those  houses 
which  permitted  of  being  repaired  and  cleaned  the 
streets  of  debris,  till  ruined  Louvain  looked  as  ship- 
shape as  ruined  Pompeii;  and  how  he  got  a  little  real 
money  from  Brussels  to  stop  depreciation  when  the 


THE  FUTURE  OF  BELGIUM         153 

storekeepers  came  to  him  and  said  that  they  had  stacks 
of  his  notes  which  no  mercantile  concern  would  cash. 

M.  Nerincx  was  practising  in  the  life  about  all  that 
he  ever  learned  and  taught  at  the  university,  "  which 
we  shall  rebuild!"  he  declared,  with  cheery  confi- 
dence. "  You  will  help  us  in  America,"  he  said. 
*'  I'm  going  to  America  to  lecture  one  of  these  days 
about  Louvain!  " 

"  You  have  the  most  famous  ruins,  unless  it  is 
Rheims,"  I  assured  him.  "  You  will  get  flocks  of 
tourists  " —  particularly  if  he  fenced  in  the  ruins  of 
the  library  and  burned  leaves  of  ancient  books  were  on 
sale. 

"  Then  you  will  not  only  have  fed,  but  have  helped 
to  rebuild  Belgium,"  he  added. 

A  shadow  of  apprehension  overhung  his  anticipa- 
tion of  the  day  of  Belgium's  delivery.  Many  a  Bel- 
gian had  arms  hidden  from  the  alert  eye  of  German 
espionage,  and  his  bitterness  was  solaced  by  the 
thought :  "  I'll  have  a  shot  at  the  Germans  when  they 
go !  "  The  lot  of  the  last  German  soldiers  to  leave 
a  town,  unless  the  garrison  slips  away  overnight,  would 
hardly  make  him  a  good  life  insurance  risk. 

My  last  look  at  a  Belgian  bread  line  was  at  Liege, 
that  town  which  had  had  a  blaze  of  fame  in  August, 
1 9 14,  and  was  now  almost  forgotten.  An  industrial 
town,  its  mines  and  works  were  idle.  The  Germans 
had  removed  the  machinery  for  rifle-making,  which 
has  become  the  most  valuable  kind  of  machinery  in  the 
world  next  to  that  for  making  guns  and  shells.  If 
skilled  Belgians  here  or  elsewhere  were  called  upon 
to  serve  the  Germans  at  their  craft,  they  suddenly  be- 
came butter-fingered.     So  that  bread  hne  at  Liege  was 


154    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

long,  its  queue  stretching  the  breadth  of  the  cathedral 
square. 

As  most  of  the  regular  German  officers  in  Belgium 
were  cavalrymen  —  there  was  nothing  for  cavalry  to 
do  on  the  Aisne  line  of  trenches  —  it  was  quite  in 
keeping  that  the  aide  to  the  commandant  of  Liege, 
who  looked  after  my  pass  to  leave  the  country,  should 
be  a  young  officer  of  Hussars.  He  spoke  English 
well;  he  was  amiable  and  intelligent.  While  I  waited 
for  the  commandant  to  sign  the  pass  he  chatted  of  his 
adventures  on  the  pursuit  of  the  British  to  the  Marne. 
The  British  fought  like  devils,  he  said.  It  was  a  ques- 
tion if  their  new  army  would  be  so  good.  He  showed 
me  a  photograph  of  himself  in  a  British  Tommy's 
overcoat. 

"  When  we  took  some  prisoners  I  was  Interested  In 
their  overcoats,"  he  explained.  "  I  asked  one  of  the 
Tommies  to  let  me  try  on  his.  It  fitted  me  perfectly, 
so  I  kept  it  as  a  souvenir  and  had  this  photograph 
made  to  show  my  friends." 

Perhaps  a  shade  of  surprise  passed  over  my  face. 

"  You  don't  understand,"  he  said.  *'  That  Tommy 
had  to  give  me  his  coat!     He  was  a  prisoner." 

On  my  way  out  from  Liege  I  was  to  see  Vise  —  the 
town  of  the  gateway  —  the  first  town  of  the  war  to 
suffer  from  frightfulness.  I  had  thought  of  it  as  en- 
tirely destroyed.     A  part  of  it  had  survived. 

A  delightful  old  Bavarian  Landsturm  man  searched 
me  for  contraband  letters  when  our  cart  stopped  on 
the  Belgian  side  of  a  barricade  at  Maastricht,  with 
Dutch  soldiers  on  the  other  side.  His  examination 
was  a  little  perfunctory,  almost  apologetic,  and  he  did 
want  to  be  friendly.  You  guessed  that  he  was  think- 
ing he  would  like  to  go  around  the  corner  and  have 


THE  FUTURE  OF  BELGIUM         155 

"  e'm  Glas  Bier  ^'  rather  than  search  me.  What  a 
hearty  "  Aiif  uiedersehenf  "  he  gave  me  when  he  saw 
that  I  was  inclined  to  be  friendly,  too ! 

I  was  glad  to  be  across  that  frontier,  with  a  last 
stamp  on  my  Passierschein;  glad  to  be  out  of  the  land 
of  those  ghostly  Belgian  millions  in  their  living  death; 
glad  not  to  have  to  answer  again  their  ravenously 
whispered  "When?"  When  would  the  Allies 
come? 

The  next  time  that  I  was  in  Belgium  it  was  in  the 
British  lines  of  the  Ypres  salient,  two  months  later. 
When  should  I  be  next  in  Brussels  ?  With  a  victorious 
British  army,  I  hoped.  A  long  wait  it  was  to  be  for 
a  conquered  people,  listening  each  day  and  trying  to 
think  that  the  sound  of  gun-fire  was  nearer. 

The  stubborn,  passive  resistance  and  self-sacrifice 
that  I  have  pictured  was  that  of  a  moral  leadership 
of  a  majority  shaming  the  minority;  or  an  ostracism  of 
all  who  had  relations  with  the  enemy.  Of  course,  it 
was  not  the  spirit  of  the  whole.  The  American  Com- 
mission, as  charity  usually  must,  had  to  overcome  ob- 
stacles set  in  its  path  by  those  whom  it  would  aid. 
Belgian  politicians,  in  keeping  with  the  weakness  of 
their  craft,  could  no  more  forego  playing  politics  in 
time  of  distress  than  some  that  we  had  in  San  Fran- 
cisco and  some  we  have  heard  of  only  across  the  Brit- 
ish Channel  from  Belgium. 

Zealous  leaders  exaggerated  the  famine  of  their  dis- 
tricts in  order  to  get  larger  supplies;  communities  in 
great  need  without  spokesmen  must  be  reached;  pow- 
erful towns  found  excuses  for  not  forwarding  food  to 
small  villages  which  were  without  influence.  Natural 
greed  got  the  better  of  men  used  to  turning  a  penny 
anyway  they  could.     Rascally  bakers  who  sifted  the 


156  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

brown  flour  to  get  the  white  to  sell  to  patisseries  and 
the  well-to-do,  while  the  bread  line  got  the  bran,  re- 
quired shrewd  handling  when  the  only  means  of  pun- 
ishment was  through  German  authority. 

"  The  local  burgomaster  yesterday  offered  to  sell 
me  some  of  your  Commission's  flour,"  wrote  a  Ger- 
man commandant.  "  I  bought  it  and  have  the  receipt, 
in  order  to  prove  to  you  that  these  Belgians  are  what 
we  say  they  are  —  a  vile  people.  I  am  turning  the 
flour  over  to  your  Commission.  We  said  that  we 
would  not  take  any  of  it  and  the  German  Government 
keeps  its  word." 

How  that  commandant  enjoyed  making  that  score  I 
As  for  the  burgomaster,  he  was  proscribed  in  a  way 
that  will  brand  him  among  his  fellow-citizens  for  life. 
When  German  soldiers  took  bread  from  families 
where  they  were  billeted,  the  German  Government 
turned  over  an  amount  of  flour  equivalent  to  the  bread 
consumed. 

A  certain  percentage  of  Belgians  saw  the  invasion 
only  as  a  visitation  of  disaster,  like  an  earthquake. 
A  flat  country  of  gardens  limits  one's  horizon.  They 
fell  in  line  with  the  sentiment  of  the  mass.  But  as 
time  wore  on  into  the  summer  and  autumn  of  the  sec- 
ond year,  some  of  them  began  to  think.  What  was  the 
use?  German  propaganda  was  active.  All  that  the 
Allies  had  cared  for  Belgium  was  to  use  her  to  check 
the  German  tide  to  Paris  and  the  Channel  ports! 
Perfidious  England  had  betrayed  Belgium !  German 
business  and  banking  influences,  which  had  been  con- 
siderable in  Belgium  before  the  war,  and  the  numerous 
German  residents  who  had  returned,  formed  a  busy 
circle  of  appeal  to  Belgian  business  men,  who  were  told 
that  the  British  navy  stood  between  them  and  a  return 


THE  FUTURE  OF  BELGIUM         157 

to  prosperity.  Germany  was  only  too  willing  that 
they  should  resume  their  trade  with  the  rest  of  the 
world. 

Why  should  not  Belgium  come  into  the  German  cus- 
toms union?  Why  should  not  Belgium  make  the  best 
of  her  unfortunate  situation,  as  became  a  practical 
and  thrifty  people?  But  be  it  a  customs  union  or 
annexation  that  Germany  plans,  the  steel  had  entered 
the  hearts  of  all  Belgians  with  red  corpuscles;  and 
King  Albert  and  his  shipperkes  were  still  fighting  the 
Germans  at  Dixmude.  A  British  army  appearing  be- 
fore Brussels  would  end  casuistry;  and  pessimism 
would  pass,  and  the  German  residents,  too,  with  the 
huzzas  of  all  Belgium  as  the  gallant  King  once  more 
ascended  the  steps  of  his  palace. 

Worthy  of  England  at  her  best  was  her  consent  to 
allow  the  Commission's  food  to  pass,  which  she  ac- 
companied by  generous  giving.  She  might  be  slow  in 
making  ready  her  army,  but  give  she  could  and  give 
she  did.  It  was  a  grave  question  if  her  consent  was 
in  keeping  with  the  military  policy  which  believes  that 
any  concession  to  sentiment  in  the  grim  business  of  war 
is  unwise.  Certainly,  the  Krieg  ist  Krieg  of  Germany 
would  not  have  permitted  it. 

There  is  the  very  point  of  the  war  that  makes  a 
neutral  take  sides.  If  the  Belgians  had  not  received 
bread  from  the  outside  world,  then  Germany  would 
either  have  had  to  spare  enough  to  keep  them  from 
starving  or  faced  the  desperation  of  a  people  who  fight 
for  food  with  such  weapons  as  they  had.  This  must 
have  meant  a  holocaust  of  reprisals  that  would  have 
made  the  orgy  of  Louvain  comparatively  unimportant. 
However  much  the  Germans  hampered  the  Commis- 
sion with  red  tape  and  worse  than  red  tape  through 


158    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  activities  of  German  residents  in  Belgium,  Ger- 
many did  not  want  the  Commission  to  withdraw.  It 
was  helping  her  to  economise  her  food  supplies.  And 
England  answered  a  human  appeal  at  the  cost  of  hard 
and  fast  military  policy.  She  was  still  true  to  the 
ideals  which  have  set  their  stamp  on  half  the  world. 


XII 

WINTER   IN    LORRAINE 

Paris  resuming  normality  —  Regular  train  service  —  Nancy  under 
fire  —  By  automobile  to  the  front  —  Panorama  of  the  contested 
lines  —  View  of  the  German  wedge  —  French  veterans  —  An- 
cient Lorraine  —  A  vision  of  battle  —  Resume  of  the  struggle  — 
The  first  German  advance — "The  face  of  the  earth  sown  with 
shells" — The  Kaiser  silenced  —  The  German  Lorraine  cam- 
paign lost  —  Visit  to  a  French  heavy  battery — Underground 
quarters  —  A  policed   army  —  Military  simplicity. 

Only  a  winding  black  streak,  that  four  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  of  trenches  on  a  flat  map.  It  is  difficult  to 
visualise  the  whole  as  you  see  it  in  your  morning  paper, 
or  to  realise  the  labour  it  represents  in  its  course 
through  the  mire  and  over  mountain  slopes,  through 
villages  and  thick  forests  and  across  open  fields. 

Every  mile  of  it  was  located  by  the  struggle  of  guns 
and  rifles  and  men  coming  to  a  stalemate  of  effort, 
when  both  dug  into  the  earth  and  neither  could  budge 
the  other.  It  is  a  line  of  countless  battles  and  broken 
hopes;  of  as  brave  charges  as  men  ever  made;  a  sym- 
bol of  skill  and  dogged  patience  and  eternal  vigilance 
of  striving  foe  against  striving  foe. 

From  the  first,  the  sector  from  Rhelms  to  Flanders 
was  most  familiar  to  the  public.  The  world  still 
thinks  of  the  battle  of  the  Marne  as  an  affair  at  the 
door  of  Paris,  though  the  heaviest  fighting  was  from 
Vitry  le  Frangois  eastward  and  the  fate  of  Paris  was 
no  less  decided  on  the  fields  of  Lorraine  than  on  the 
fields  of  Champagne.     The  storming  of  Rhelms  cathe- 

159 


i6o  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

dral  became  the  theme  of  thousands  of  words  of  print 
to  one  word  for  the  defence  of  the  Plateau  d'Amance 
or  the  struggle  around  Luneville.  Our  knowledge  of 
the  war  is  from  glimpses  through  the  curtain  of  mili- 
tary secrecy  which  was  drawn  tight  over  Lorraine  and 
the  Vosges,  shrouded  in  mountain  mists.  This  is 
about  Lorraine  in  winter,  when  the  war  was  six  months 
old. 

But  first,  on  our  way,  a  word  about  Paris,  which  I 
had  not  seen  since  September.  At  the  outset  of  the 
war,  Parisians  who  had  not  gone  to  the  front  were  in 
a  trance  of  suspense;  they  were  magnetised  by  the 
tragic  possibilities  of  the  hour.  The  fear  of  disaster 
was  in  their  hearts,  though  they  might  deny  it  to  them- 
selves. They  could  think  of  nothing  but  France. 
Now  they  realised  that  the  best  way  to  help  France 
was  by  going  on  with  their  work  at  home.  Paris  was 
trying  to  be  normal,  but  no  Parisian  was  making  the 
bluff  that  Paris  was  normal.  The  Gallic  lucidity  of 
mind  prevented  such  self-deception. 

Is  it  normal  to  have  your  sons,  brothers,  and  hus- 
bands up  to  their  knees  in  icy  water  in  the  trenches,  in 
danger  of  death  every  minute?  This  attitude  seems 
human;  it  seems  logical.  One  liked  the  French  for  it. 
He  liked  them  for  boasting  so  little.  In  their  effort 
at  normality  they  had  accomplished  more  than  they 
realised.  After  all,  only  one-thirtieth  of  the  area  of 
France  was  in  German  hands.  A  line  of  steel  made 
the  rest  safe  for  those  not  at  the  front  to  pursue  the 
routine  of  peace. 

When  I  had  been  in  Paris  in  September  there  was 
no  certainty  about  railroad  connections  anywhere. 
You  went  to  the  station  and  took  your  chances,  gov- 
erned by  the  movement  of  troops,  not  to  mention  other 


WINTER  IN  LORRAINE  i6i 

conditions.  This  time  I  took  the  regular  noon  express 
to  Nancy,  as  I  might  have  done  to  Marseilles,  or 
Rome,  or  Madrid,  had  I  chosen.  The  sprinkling  of 
quiet  army  officers  on  the  train  were  in  the  new  uni- 
form of  peculiar  steely  grey,  in  place  of  the  target  blue 
and  red.  But  for  them  and  the  number  of  women  in 
mourning  and  one  other  circumstance,  the  train  might 
have  been  bound  for  Berlin,  with  Nancy  only  a  stop  on 
the  way. 

The  other  circumstance  was  the  presence  of  a  sol- 
dier in  the  vestibule  who  said:  "  Votre  laisser-passer, 
monsieur  J  s'il  votis  plait  f"  If  you  had  a  laisser- 
passer,  he  was  most  polite;  but  if  you  lacked  one,  he 
would  also  have  been  most  polite  and  so  would  the 
guard  that  took  you  in  charge  at  the  next  station.  In 
other  words,  monsieur,  you  must  have  something  be- 
sides a  railroad  ticket  if  you  are  on  a  train  that  runs 
past  the  fortress  of  Toul  and  your  destination  is 
Nancy.  You  must  have  a  military  pass,  which  was 
never  given  to  foreigners  If  they  were  travelling  alone 
in  the  zone  of  military  operations.  The  pulse  of  the 
Frenchman  beats  high,  his  imagination  bounds,  when 
he  looks  eastward.  To  the  east  are  the  lost  prov- 
inces and  the  frontier  drawn  by  the  war  of  '70  be- 
tween French  Lorraine  and  German  Lorraine.  This 
gave  our  journey  interest. 

Nancy,  capital  of  French  Lorraine,  Is  so  near  Metz, 
the  great  German  fortress  town  of  German  Lorraine, 
that  excursion  trains  used  to  run  to  Nancy  In  the  opera 
season.  "  They  are  not  running  this  winter,"  say  the 
wits  of  Nancy.  "  For  one  reason,  we  have  no  opera 
—  and  there  are  other  reasons." 

An  aeroplane  from  the  German  lines  has  only  to 
toss  a  bomb  in  the  course  of  an  average  reconnaissance 


1 62    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

on  Nancy  if  It  chooses;  Zeppelins  are  within  easy  com- 
muting distance.  But  here  was  Nancy  as  brilliantly 
lighted  at  nine  in  the  evening  as  any  city  of  its  size  at 
home.  Our  train,  too,  had  run  with  the  windows  un- 
shaded. After  the  darkness  of  London,  and  after 
English  trains  with  every  window  shade  closely  drawn, 
this  was  a  surprise. 

It  was  a  threat,  an  anticipation,  that  has  darkened 
London,  while  Nancy  knew  fulfilment.  Bombard- 
ment and  bomb  dropping  were  nothing  new  to  Nancy. 
The  spice  of  danger  gives  a  fiUip  to  business  in  the 
town  whose  population  heard  the  din  of  the  most 
thunderously  spectacular  action  of  the  war  echoing 
among  the  surrounding  hills.  Nancy  saw  the  enemy 
beaten  back.  Now  she  was  so  close  to  the  front  that 
she  felt  the  throb  of  the  army's  life. 

"Don't  you  ever  worry  about  aerial  raids?"  I 
asked  madame  behind  the  counter  at  the  hotel. 

"  Do  the  men  in  the  trenches  worry  about  them?  " 
she  answered.  "  We  have  a  much  easier  time  than 
they.  Why  shouldn't  we  share  some  of  their  dan- 
gers? And  when  a  Zeppehn  appears  and  our  guns 
begin  firing,  w^e  all  feel  like  soldiers  under  fire." 

"  Are  all  the  population  here  as  usual?  " 

"  Certainly,  monsieur!  "  she  said.  "  The  Germans 
can  never  take  Nancy.  The  French  are  going  to  take 
Metz!" 

The  meal  which  that  hotel  restaurant  served  was  as 
good  as  in  peace  times.  Who  deserves  a  good  meal 
if  not  the  officer  who  comes  in  from  the  front?  And 
madame  sees  that  he  gets  it.  She  is  as  proud  of  her 
poiilet  en  casserole  as  any  commander  of  a  soixante- 
quinze  battery  of  its  practice.     There  was  steam  heat, 


WINTER  IN  LORRAINE  163 

too,  in  the  hotel,  which  gave  an  American  a  homelike 
feeling. 

In  a  score  of  places  in  the  Eastern  States  you  see 
landscapes  with  high  hills  like  the  spurs  of  the  Vosges 
around  Nancy  sprinkled  with  snow  and  under  a  blue 
mist.  And  the  air  was  dry;  It  had  the  life  of  our  air. 
Old  Civil  War  men  who  had  been  in  the  Tennessee 
Mountains  or  the  Shenandoah  Valley  would  feel  per- 
fectly at  home  In  such  surroundings;  only  the  fore- 
ground of  farm  land  which  merges  Into  the  crests  cov- 
ered with  trees  In  the  distance  is  more  finished.  The 
people  were  tilling  It  hundreds  of  years  before  we  be- 
gan tilling  ours.  They  till  well ;  they  make  Lorraine 
a  rich  province  of  France. 

With  guns  pounding  in  the  distance,  boys  in  their 
capes  were  skipping  and  frolicking  on  their  way  to 
school;  housewives  were  going  to  market,  and  the 
streets  were  spotlessly  clean.  All  the  men  of  Nancy 
not  in  the  army  pursued  their  regular  routine  while 
the  army  went  about  its  business  of  throwing  shells  at 
the  Germans.  On  the  dead  walls  of  the  buildings 
were  M.  Deschanel's  speech  in  the  Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties, breathing  endurance  till  victory,  and  the  call  for 
the  class  of  recruits  of  1915,  which  you  will  find  on 
the  walls  of  the  towns  of  all  France  beside  that  of 
the  order  of  mobilisation  in  August,  now  weather- 
stained.  Nancy  seemed,  if  anything,  more  French 
than  any  interior  French  town.  Though  near  the 
border,  there  is  no  touch  of  German  influence.  When 
you  walked  through  the  old  Place  Stanislaus,  so  ex- 
pressive of  the  architectural  taste  bred  for  centuries 
in  the  French,  you  understand  the  glow  in  the  hearts  of 
this  very  French  population  which  made  them  uncon- 


1 64    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

scious  of  danger  while  their  flag  was  flying  over  this 
very  French  city. 

No  two  Christian  peoples  we  know  are  quite  so  dif- 
ferent as  the  French  and  the  Germans.  To  each 
every  national  thought  and  habit  incarnates  a  patriot- 
ism which  is  in  defiance  of  that  on  the  other  side  of 
the  frontier.  Over  in  America  you  may  see  the  good 
in  both  sides,  but  no  Frenchman  and  no  German  can 
on  the  Lorraine  frontier.  If  he  should,  he  would  no 
longer  be  a  Frenchman  or  a  German  in  time  of  war. 

At  our  service  in  front  of  the  hotel  were  waiting 
two  mortals  in  goatskin  coats,  with  scarfs  around  their 
ears  and  French  military  caps  on  top  of  the  scarfs. 
They  were  official  army  chauffeurs.  If  you  have 
ridden  through  the  AUeghenies  in  winter  in  an  open 
car  why  explain  that  seeing  the  Vosges  front  in  an 
automobile  may  be  a  joy  ride  to  an  Eskimo,  but  not  to 
your  humble  servant?  But  the  roads  were  perfect; 
as  good  wherever  we  went  in  this  mountain  country 
as  from  New  York  to  Poughkeepsie.  I  need  not  tell 
you  this  if  you  have  been  in  France ;  but  you  will  be 
interested  to  know  that  Lorraine  keeps  her  roads  in 
perfect  repair  even  in  war  time. 

Crossing  the  swollen  Moselle  on  a  military  bridge, 
twisting  in  and  out  of  valleys  and  speeding  through  vil- 
lages, one  saw  who  were  guarding  the  army's  secrets, 
but  little  of  the  army  itself  and  few  signs  of  transpor- 
tation on  a  bleak,  snowy  day.  At  the  outskirts  of 
every  village,  at  every  bridge,  and  at  intervals  along 
the  road.  Territorial  sentries  stopped  the  car.  Having 
an  officer  along  was  not  sufficient  to  let  you  whizz  by 
important  posts.  He  must  show  his  pass.  Every 
sentry  was  a  reminder  of  the  hopelessness  of  being  a 
correspondent  these  days  without  official  sanction. 


WINTER  IN  LORRAINE  165 

The  sentries  were  men  in  the  thirties.  In  Belgium, 
their  German  counterpart,  the  Landsturm,  were  the 
monitors  of  a  journey  that  I  made.  No  troops  are 
more  military  than  the  first  line  Germans;  but  in  the 
snap  and  spirit  of  his  salute  the  French  Territorial  has 
an  elan,  a  martial  fervour,  which  the  phlegmatic  Ger- 
man in  the  thirties  lacks. 

Occasionally  we  passed  scattered  soldiers  in  the  vil- 
lage streets,  or  a  door  opened  to  show  a  soldier  figure 
in  the  doorway.  The  reason  that  we  were  not  seeing 
anything  of  the  army  was  the  same  that  keeps  the 
men  and  boys  who  are  on  the  steps  of  the  country 
grocery  in  summer  at  home  around  the  stove  in  win- 
ter. AH  these  villages  were  full  of  reservists  who 
were  indoors.  They  could  be  formed  in  the  street 
ready  for  the  march  to  any  part  of  the  Hne  where  a 
concentrated  attack  was  made  almost  as  soon  after 
the  alarm  as  a  fire  engine  starts  to  a  fire. 

Now,  imagine  your  view  of  a  ball  game  limited  to 
the  batter  and  the  pitcher:  and  that  is  all  you  see  in 
the  low  country  of  Flanders.  You  have  no  grasp 
of  what  all  the  noise  and  struggle  means,  for  you 
cannot  see  over  the  shoulders  of  the  crowd.  But  in 
Lorraine  you  have  only  to  ascend  a  hill  and  the  moves 
in  the  chess  game  of  war  are  clear. 

A  panorama  unfolds  as  our  car  takes  a  rising  grade 
to  the  village  of  Ste.  Genevieve.  We  alight  and  walk 
along  a  bridge,  where  the  sentry  or  a  lookout  is  on 
watch.  He  seems  quite  alone,  but  at  our  approach 
a  dozen  of  his  comrades  come  out  of  their  "  home  " 
dug  in  the  hillside.  Wherever  you  go  about  the 
frozen  country  of  Lorraine  it  is  a  case  of  flushing  sol- 
diers from  their  shelters.  A  small,  semicircular  table 
is  set  up  before  the  lookout,  like  his  compass  before 


1 66    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

a  manner.  Here  run  blue  pencil  lines  of  direction 
pointing  to  Pont-a-Mousson,  to  Chateau-Salins,  and 
other  towns.  Before  us  to  the  east  rose  the  tree-clad 
crests  of  the  famous  Grand  Couronne  of  Nancy,  and 
faintly  in  the  distance  we  could  see  Metz,  that  strong 
fortress  town  in  German  Lorraine. 

"  Those  guns  that  I  hear,  are  they  firing  across  the 
frontier?  "  I  asked.  For  some  French  batteries  com- 
mand one  of  the  outer  forts  of  Metz. 

"  No,  they  are  near  Pont-a-Mousson." 

To  the  north  the  little  town  of  Pont-a-Mousson  lay 
in  the  lap  of  the  river  bottom,  and  across  the  valley, 
to  the  west,  the  famous  Bois  le  Pretre.  More  guns 
were  speaking  from  the  forest  depths,  which  showed 
great  scars  where  the  trees  had  been  cut  to  give  fields 
of  fire.  This  was  well  to  the  rear  of  our  position  — 
marking  the  boundaries  of  the  wedge  that  the  Ger- 
mans drove  into  the  French  lines,  with  its  point  at  St. 
Mihiel  —  in  trying  to  isolate  the  forts  of  Verdun  and 
Toul.  Doubtless  you  have  noticed  that  wedge  on  the 
snake  maps  and  have  wondered  about  it,  as  I  have. 
It  looks  so  narrow  that  the  French  ought  to  be  able 
to  shoot  across  it  from  both  sides.  If  not,  why  don't 
the  Germans  widen  it? 

Well,  for  one  thing,  a  quarter  of  an  inch  on  a  map 
is  a  good  many  miles  of  ground.  The  Germans  can- 
not spread  their  wedge  because  they  would  have  to 
climb  the  walls  of  an  alley.  That  was  a  fact  as  clear 
to  the  eye  as  the  valley  of  the  Hudson  from  West 
Point.  The  Germans  occupy  an  alley  within  an  alley, 
as  it  were.  They  have  their  own  natural  defences  for 
the  edges  of  their  wedge;  or,  where  they  do  not,  they 
lie  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  French  in  such  thick  woods 
as  the  Bois  le  Pretre. 


WINTER  IN  LORRAINE  167 

At  our  feet,  looking  toward  Metz,  an  apron  of  cul- 
tivated land  swept  down  for  a  mile  or  more  to  z 
forest  edge.  This  was  cut  by  lines  of  trenches, 
whose  barbed  wire  protection  pricked  a  blanket  of 
snow. 

*'  Our  front  is  in  those  woods,"  explained  the  colonel 
who  was  in  command  of  the  point. 

"  A  major  when  the  war  began  and  an  officer  of 
reserves,"  mon  capitaine,  who  had  brought  us  out 
from  Paris,  explained  about  the  colonel.  We  were 
soon  used  to  hearing  that  a  colonel  had  been  a  major 
or  a  major  a  captain  before  the  Kaiser  had  tried  to 
get  Nancy.  There  was  quick  death  and  speedy  pro- 
motion at  the  great  battle  of  Lorraine,  as  there  was  at 
Gettysburg  and  Antietam. 

"  They  charged  out  of  the  woods,  and  we  had  a 
battalion  of  reserves  —  here  are  some  of  them  —  mes 
poilusf  " 

He  turned  affectionately  to  the  bearded  fellows  in 
Karfs  who  had  come  out  of  the  shelter.  They  smiled 
kack.  Now,  as  we  all  chatted  together,  officer-and- 
man  distinction  disappeared.  We  were  in  a  family 
party. 

It  was  all  very  simple  to  mes  poilus,  that  first  fight. 
They  had  been  told  to  hold.  If  Ste.  Genevieve  were 
lost,  the  Amance  plateau  was  in  danger,  and  the  loss 
of  the  Amance  plateau  meant  the  fall  of  Nancy. 
Some  military  martinets  say  that  the  soldiers  of  France 
think  too  much.  In  this  case  thinking  may  have  taught 
them  responsibility.  So  they  held;  they  lay  tight, 
these  reserves,  and  kept  on  firing  as  the  Germans 
swarmed  out  of  the  woods. 

"  And  the  Germans  stopped  there,  monsieur. 
They  hadn't  very  far  to  go,  had  they?     But  the  last 


i68  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

fifty  yards,  monsieur,  are  the  hardest  travelling  when 
you  are  trying  to  take  a  trench." 

They  knew,  these  poiltis,  these  veterans.  Every 
soldier  who  serves  in  Lorraine  knows.  They  them- 
selves have  tried  to  rush  out  of  the  edge  of  a  woods 
across  an  open  space  against  intrenched  Germans,  and 
found  the  shoe  on  the  other  foot. 

Now  the  fields  in  the  foreground  down  to  the  wood's 
edge  were  bare  of  any  living  thing.  You  had  to  take 
mon  capitaine's  word  for  it  that  there  were  any  sol- 
diers in  front  of  us. 

"  The  Boches  are  a  good  distance  away  at  this 
point,"  he  said.     "  They  are  in  the  next  woods." 

A  broad  stretch  of  snow  lay  between  the  two  clumps 
of  woods.  It  was  not  worth  while  for  either  side  to 
try  to  get  possession  of  the  intervening  space.  At  the 
first  movement  by  either  French  or  Germans  the 
woods  opposite  would  hum  with  rifle  fire  and  echo 
with  cannonading.  So,  like  rival  parties  of  Arctic 
explorers  waiting  out  the  Arctic  winter,  they  watched 
each  other.  But  if  one  force  or  the  other  napped, 
and  the  other  caught  him  at  it,  then  winter  would  not 
stay  a  brigade  commander's  ambition.  Three  days' 
later  in  this  region  the  French,  by  a  quick  movement, 
got  a  good  bag  of  prisoners  to  make  a  welcome  item 
for  the  daily  French  official  bulletin. 

*'  We  wait  and  the  Germans  wait  on  spring  for 
any  big  movement,"  said  the  colonel.  "  Men  can't  lie 
out  all  night  in  the  advance  in  weather  like  this.  In 
that  direction — "  He  indicated  a  part  of  the  line 
where  the  two  armies  were  facing  each  other  across 
the  old  frontier.  Back  and  forth  they  had  fought, 
only  to  arrive  where  they  had  begun. 

There  was  something  else  which  the  colonel  wished 


WINTER  IN  LORRAINE  169^ 

us  to  see  before  we  left  the  hill  of  Ste.  Genevieve.  It 
appealed  to  his  Gallic  sentiment,  this  quadrilateral  of 
stone  on  the  highest  point  where  legend  tells  that 
"  Jovin,  a  Christian  and  very  faithful,  vanquished  the 
German  barbarians  366  A.D." 

"  We  have  to  do  as  well  In  our  day  as  Jovin  In 
his,"  remarked  the  colonel. 

The  church  of  Ste.  Genevieve  was  badly  smashed  by 
shell.  So  was  the  church  in  the  village  on  the  Plateau 
d'Amance.  Most  churches  in  this  district  of  Lor- 
raine are.  Framed  through  a  great  gap  In  the  wall 
of  the  church  of  Amance  was  an  immense  Christ  on 
the  cross  without  a  single  abrasion,  and  a  pile  of  debris 
at  Its  feet.  After  seeing  as  many  ruined  churches  as 
I  have,  one  becomes  almost  superstitious  at  how  often 
the  figures  of  Christ  escape.  But  I  have  also  seen 
effigies  of  Christ  blown  to  bits. 

Any  one  who,  from  an  eminence,  has  seen  one  battle 
fought  visualises  another  readily  when  the  positions  lie 
at  his  feet.  Looking  out  on  the  field  of  Gettysburg 
from  Round  Top,  I  can  always  get  the  same  thrill 
that  I  had  when,  seated  in  a  gallery  above  the  Rus- 
sian and  the  Japanese  armies,  I  saw  the  battle  of  Liao- 
yang.  In  sight  of  that  Plateau  d'Amance,  which  rises 
like  a  great  knuckle  above  the  surrounding  country,  a 
battle  covering  twenty  times  the  extent  of  Gettysburg 
raged,  and  one  could  have  looked  over  a  battle-line 
as  far  as  the  eye  may  see  from  a  steamer's  mast. 

An  icy  gale  swept  across  the  white  crest  of  the  pla- 
teau on  this  January  day,  but  it  was  nothing  to  the 
gale  of  shells  that  descended  on  it  in  late  August  and 
early  September.  Forty  thousand  shells.  It  Is  esti- 
mated, fell  there.  One  kicked  up  fragments  of  steel 
on  the  field  like  peanut  shells  after  a  circus  has  gone. 


I70    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Here  were  the  emplacements  of  a  battery  of  French 
soixante-quinze  within  a  circle  of  holes  torn  by  its  ad- 
versaries' replies  to  its  fire ;  a  little  farther  along,  con- 
cealed by  shrubbery,  the  position  of  another  battery 
which  the  enemy  had  not  located. 

"  So  that  was  it!  "  The  struggle  on  the  immense 
landscape,  where  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  million  men 
were  killed  and  wounded,  became  as  simple  as  some 
Brobdignagian  football  match.  Before  the  war  be- 
gan the  French  would  not  move  a  man  within  five 
miles  of  the  frontier  lest  it  be  provocative:  but  once 
the  issue  was  joined  they  sprang  for  Alsace  and  Lor- 
raine, their  imagination  magnetised  by  the  thought  of 
the  recovery  of  the  lost  provinces.  Their  Alpine 
chasseurs,  mountain  men  of  the  Alpine  and  the  Pyr- 
enees districts,  were  concentrated  for  the  purpose. 

I  recalled  a  remark  I  had  heard:  "  What  a  pitiful 
little  offensive  that  was !  "  It  was  made  by  one  of 
those  armchair  "  military  experts,"  who  look  at  a  map 
and  jump  at  a  conclusion.  They  appear  very  wise  in 
their  wordiness  when  real  military  experts  are  silent 
for  want  of  knowledge.  Pitiful,  was  it?  Ask  the 
Germans  who  faced  it  what  they  think.  Pitiful,  that 
sweep  over  those  mountain  walls  and  through  the 
passes?  Pitiful,  perhaps,  because  it  failed,  though 
not  until  it  had  taken  Chateau-Salins  in  the  north  and 
Mulhouse  in  the  south.  Ask  the  Germans  if  they 
think  that  it  was  pitiful!  The  Confederates  also 
failed  at  Antietam  and  at  Gettysburg,  but  the  Union 
army  never  thought  of  their  efforts  as  pitiful. 

The  French  fell  back  because  all  the  weight  of  the 
German  army  was  thrown  against  France,  while  the 
Austrians  were  left  to  look  after  the  slowly  mobilising 
Russians.     Two  million  five  hundred  thousand  men  on 


WINTER  IN  LORRAINE  171 

their  first  line  the  Germans  had,  as  we  know  now, 
against  the  French  twelve  hundred  thousand.  To 
make  sure  of  saving  Paris  as  the  Germans  swung  their 
mighty  flanking  column  through  Belgium,  Joffre  had 
to  draw  in  his  lines.  The  Germans  came  over  the 
hills  as  splendidly  as  the  French  had  gone.  They 
struck  in  all  directions  toward  Paris.  In  Lorraine 
was  their  left  flank,  the  Bavarians,  meant  to  play  the 
same  part  to  the  east  that  von  Kluck  played  to  the 
west.  We  heard  only  of  von  Kluck  and  the  British 
retreat  from  Mons;  nothing  of  this  terrific  struggle  in 
Lorraine. 

From  the  Plateau  d'Amance  you  may  see  how  far 
the  Germans  came  and  what  vv-as  their  object.  Be- 
tween the  fortresses  of  Epinal  and  of  Toul  lies  the 
Trouee  de  Mirecourt  —  the  Gap  of  Mirecourt.  It  is 
said  that  the  French  had  purposely  left  it  open  when 
they  were  thinking  of  fighting  the  Germans  on  their 
own  frontier  and  not  on  that  of  Belgium.  They 
wanted  the  Germans  to  make  their  trial  here  —  and 
wisely,  for  with  all  the  desperate  and  courageous  ef- 
forts of  the  Bavarian  and  Saxon  armies  they  never 
got  near  the  gap. 

If  they  had  forced  it,  however,  with  von  Kluck 
swinging  on  the  other  flank,  they  might  have  got 
around  the  French  army.  Such  was  the  dream  of 
German  strategy,  whose  realisation  was  so  boldly  and 
skilfully  undertaken.  The  Germans  counted  on  their 
immense  force  of  artillery,  built  for  this  war  in  the 
last  two  years  and  outranging  the  French,  to  demor- 
alise the  French  infantr>^  But  the  French  infantry 
called  the  big  shells  "  marmites '''  (saucepans),  and 
made  a  joke  of  them  and  the  death  they  spread  as 
they  tore  up  the  fields  in  clouds  of  earth. 


172    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Ah,  it  took  more  than  artillery  to  beat  back  the 
best  troops  of  France  In  a  country  like  this  —  a  coun- 
try of  rolling  hills  and  fenceless  fields  cut  by  many 
streams  and  set  among  thick  woods,  where  infantry 
on  a  bank  or  at  a  forest's  edge  with  rifles  and  rapld- 
firers  and  guns  kept  their  barrels  cool  until  the  charge 
developed  in  the  open.  Some  of  these  forests  are 
only  a  few  acres  in  extent;  others  are  hundreds  of 
acres.  In  the  dark  depths  of  one  a  frozen  lake  was 
seen  glistening  from  our  position  on  the  Plateau 
d'Amance. 

"  Indescribable  that  scene  which  we  witnessed  from 
here,"  said  an  officer,  who  had  been  on  the  plateau 
throughout  the  fighting.  "All  the  splendid  majesty 
of  war  was  set  on  a  stage  before  you.  It  was  intoxi- 
cation. We  could  see  the  lines  of  troops  In  their  re- 
treat and  advance,  batteries  and  charges  shrouded  in 
shrapnel  smoke.  What  hosts  of  guns  the  Germans 
had!  They  seemed  to  be  sowing  the  whole  face  of 
the  earth  with  shells.  The  roar  of  the  thing  was  like 
that  of  chaos  itself.  It  was  the  exhilaration  of  the 
spectacle  that  kept  us  from  dropping  from  fatigue. 
Two  weeks  of  this  business !  Two  weeks  with  every 
unit  of  artillery  and  infantry  always  ready,  if  not  act- 
ually engaged!  " 

The  general  in  command  was  directing  not  one  but 
many  battles,  each  with  a  general  of  its  own;  ma- 
noeuvring troops  across  the  streams  and  open  places, 
seeking  the  cover  of  forests,  with  the  aeroplanes  un- 
able to  learn  how  many  of  the  enemy  were  hidden  in 
the  forests  on  his  front,  while  he  tried  to  keep  his  men 
out  of  angles  and  make  his  movements  correspond 
with  those  of  the  divisions  on  his  right  and  left.  Skill 
this  requires;  skill  equivalent  to  German  skill;  the  skill 


WINTER  IN  LORRAINE  173 

which  you  cannot  organise  in  a  month  after  calling  for 
a  million  volunteers,  but  which  grows  through  years 
of  organisation. 

Shall  I  call  the  general  In  chief  command  General 
X?  This  is  according  to  the  custom  of  anonymity. 
A  great  modern  army  like  the  French  is  a  machine; 
any  man,  high  or  low,  only  a  unit  of  the  machine.  In 
this  case  the  real  name  of  X  is  Castelnau.  If  it  lacks 
the  fame  which  may  seem  its  due,  that  may  be  because 
he  was  not  operating  near  a  transatlantic  cable  end. 
Fame  is  not  the  business  of  French  generals  nowadays. 
It  is  war.  What  counted  for  France  was  that  he 
never  let  the  Germans  get  near  the  gap  at  Mire- 
court. 

Having  failed  to  reach  the  gap,  the  Germans,  with 
that  stubbornness  of  the  offensive  which  characterises 
them,  tried  to  take  Nancy.  They  got  a  battery  of 
heavy  guns  within  range  of  the  city.  From  a  high 
hill  it  is  said  that  the  Kaiser  watched  the  bombard- 
ment. But  here  is  a  story.  As  the  German  infantry 
advanced  toward  their  new  objective  they  passed  a 
French  artillery  officer  in  a  tree.  He  was  able  to  lo- 
cate that  heavy  battery  and  able  to  signal  its  position 
back  to  his  own  side.  The  French  concentrated  suffi- 
cient fire  to  silence  it  after  it  had  thrown  forty  shells 
into  Nancy.  The  same  report  tells  how  the  Kaiser 
folded  his  cloak  around  him  and  walked  down  in 
silence  from  his  eminence,  where  the  sun  blazed  on  his 
helmet.  It  was  not  the  Germans'  fault  that  they  failed 
to  take  Nancy.     It  was  due  to  the  French. 

Some  time  a  tablet  will  be  put  up  to  denote  the  high- 
water  mark  of  the  German  invasion  of  Lorraine.  It 
will  be  between  the  edge  of  the  forest  of  Champenoux 
and  the  heights.     When  the  Germans  charged  from 


174  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  cover  of  the  forest  to  get  possession  of  the  road  to 
Nancy,  the  French  guns  and  mitrailleuses  which  had 
held  their  fire  turned  loose.  The  rest  of  the  story 
is  how  the  French  infantry,  impatient  at  being  held 
back,  swept  down  in  a  counter-attack,  and  the  Ger- 
mans had  to  give  up  their  campaign  in  Lorraine  as 
they  gave  up  their  campaign  against  Paris  in  the  early 
part  of  September.  Saddest  of  all  lost  opportunities 
to  the  correspondent  in  this  war  is  this  fighting  in  Lor- 
raine. One  had  only  to  climb  a  hill  in  order  to  see 
it  all! 

In  half  an  hour,  as  the  officer  outlined  the  posi- 
tions, we  had  lived  through  the  two  weeks'  fighting; 
and,  thanks  to  the  fairness  of  his  story  —  that  of  a 
professional  soldier  without  illusions  —  we  felt  that 
we  had  been  hearing  history  while  it  was  very  fresh. 

"  They  are  very  brave  and  skilful,  the  Germans," 
he  said.  "  We  still  have  a  battery  of  heavy  guns  on 
the  plateau.     Let  us  go  and  see  it." 

We  went,  picking  our  way  among  the  snow-covered 
shell  pits.  At  one  point  we  crossed  a  communicating 
trench,  where  soldiers  could  go  and  come  to  the  guns 
and  the  infantry  positions  without  being  exposed  to 
shell  fire.     I  noticed  that  it  carried  a  telephone  wire. 

"Yes,"  said  the  officer;  "we  had  no  ditch  during 
the  fight  with  the  Germans,  and  we  were  short  of  tele- 
phone wire  for  a  while;  so  we  had  to  carry  messages 
back  and  forth  as  in  the  old  days.  It  was  a  pretty 
warm  kind  of  messenger  service  when  the  German 
marmites  were  falling  their  thickest." 

At  length  he  stopped  before  a  small  mound  of  earth 
not  in  any  way  distinctive  at  a  short  distance  on  the 
uneven  surface  of  the  plateau.  I  did  not  even  notice 
that  there  were  three  other  such  mounds.     He  pointed 


WINTER  IN  LORRAINE  175 

to  a  hole  in  the  ground.  I  had  been  used  to  going 
through  a  manhole  in  a  battleship  turret,  but  not 
through  one  into  a  field-gun  position  before  aeroplanes 
played  a  part  in  war. 

"  Entrez,  monsieur!  " 

And  I  stepped  down  to  face  the  breech  of  a  gun 
whose  muzzle  pointed  out  of  another  hole  in  the  tim- 
bered roof  covered  with  earth. 

"  It's  very  cosy!  "  I  remarked. 

"  Oh,  this  is  the  shop !  The  living-room  is  below 
—  here !  " 

I  descended  a  ladder  into  a  cellar  ten  feet  below 
the  gun  level,  where  some  of  the  gunners  were  lying 
on  a  thick  carpet  of  perfectly  dry  straw. 

"You  are  not  doing  much  firing  these  days?"  I 
suggested. 

"  Oh,  we  gave  the  Boches  a  couple  this  morning  so 
they  wouldn't  get  cocky  thinking  they  were  safe.  It's 
necessary  to  keep  your  hand  in  even  in  the  winter." 

"  Don't  you  get  lonesome?  " 

"  No,  we  shift  on  and  off.  We're  not  here  all  the 
while.  It  is  quite  warm  in  our  salon,  monsieur,  and 
we  have  good  comrades.  It  is  war.  It  is  for  France. 
What  would  you  ?  " 

Four  other  gun  positions  and  four  other  cellars  like 
this !  Thousands  of  gun  positions  and  thousands  of 
cellars !  Man  invents  new  powers  of  destruction  and 
man  finds  a  way  of  escaping  them. 

As  we  left  the  battery  we  started  forward,  and  sud- 
denly out  of  the  dusk  came  a  sharp  call.  A  young 
corporal  confronted  us.  Who  were  we  and  what  busi- 
ness had  we  prowling  about  on  that  hill?  If  there 
had  been  no  officer  along  and  I  had  not  had  a  laisser- 
passer  on  my  person,  the  American  Ambassador  to 


176  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

-^ 

France  would  probably  have  had  to  get  another  coun- 
tryman out  of  trouble. 

The  Incident  shows  how  thoroughly  the  army  Is  po- 
liced and  how  surely.  Editors  who  wonder  why  their 
correspondents  are  not  in  the  front  line  catching  bul- 
lets, please  take  notice. 

It  was  dark  when  we  returned  to  the  little  village 
on  the  plateau  where  we  had  left  our  car.  The  place 
seemed  uninhabited  with  all  the  blinds  closed.  But 
through  one  uncovered  window  I  saw  a  room  full  of 
chatting  soldiers.  We  went  to  pay  our  respects  to  the 
colonel  in  command,  and  found  him  and  his  staff 
around  a  table  covered  with  oilcloth  In  the  main  liv- 
ing-room of  a  villager's  house.  He  spoke  of  his  men, 
of  their  loyalty  and  cheerfulness,  as  the  other  com- 
manders had,  as  If  this  were  his  only  boast.  These 
French  officers  have  little  "  side  ";  none  of  that  toe- 
the-mark,  strutting  militarism  which  some  soldiers 
think  necessary  to  efficiency.  They  live  very  simply 
on  campaign,  though  If  they  do  get  to  town  for  a  few 
hours  they  enjoy  a  good  meal.  If  they  did  not, 
madame  at  the  restaurant  would  feel  that  she  was  not 
doing  her  duty  to  France. 


XIII 

SMILES   AMONG   RUINS 

Elation  In  the  cause  —  From  Nancy  southward  —  A  giant  Frenchman 
—  Personnel  of  the  French  machine  —  Dejeuner  —  Father  Joffre's 
boarding  establishment  —  A  thrifty  army  —  Responsibility  in  a 
democracy  —  Determination  for  final  peace — "Rural  free  de- 
livery" at  the  front  —  A  card-indexed  army  —  Their  families  — 
Battlefields  that  saved  Paris  —  Souvenirs  aplenty  —  Ruthless 
"military  advantage" — A  shattered  farmhouse  —  Helping  the 
farmers  —  Construction  of  trenches  —  In  the  front  line  trench  — 
Watchful  waiting  —  The  Lorraine  country  —  Widespread  de- 
struction—  Another  "Louvain" — A  brave  and  great  Sister  — 
Thrilling  attacks — "It  was  for  France!"— His  Honour,  the 
Mayor  ^  The  tricolour  in  Lorraine. 

Scorched  piles  of  brick  and  mortar  where  a  home  has 
been  ought  to  make  about  the  same  impression  any- 
where. When  you  have  gone  from  Belgium  to  French 
Lorraine,  however,  you  will  know  quite  the  contrary. 
In  Belgium  I  suffered  all  the  depression  which  a  night- 
mare of  war's  misery  can  bring;  in  French  Lorraine  I 
found  myself  sharing  something  of  the  elation  of  a 
man  who  looks  at  a  bruised  knuckle  with  the  conscious- 
ness that  It  broke  a  burglar's  jaw. 

A  Belgian  repairing  the  wreck  of  his  house  was  a 
grim,  heartbreaking  picture;  a  Frenchman  of  Lorraine 
repairing  the  wreck  of  his  house  had  the  light  of  hard- 
won  victory,  of  confidence,  of  sacrifice  made  to  a  great 
purpose,  of  freedom  secure  for  future  generations,  in 
his  eyes.  The  difference  was  this:  The  Germans 
were  still  in  Belgium;  they  were  out  of  French  Lor- 
raine for  good. 

"  What  matters  a  shell-hole  through  my  walls  and 
177 


178    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

my  torn  roof!"  said  a  Lorraine  farmer.  "Work 
will  make  my  house  whole.  But  nothing  could  ever 
have  made  my  heart  and  soul  whole  while  the  Ger- 
mans remained.  I  saw  them  go,  monsieur;  they  left 
us  ruins,  but  France  is  ours!  " 

I  had  thought  it  a  pretty  good  thing  to  see  some- 
thing of  the  Eastern  French  front;  but  a  better  thing 
was  the  happiness  I  found  there.  Mon  capitaine  had 
come  out  from  the  Ministry  of  War  in  Paris;  but 
when  we  set  out  from  Nancy  southward,  we  had  a 
different  local  guide,  a  major  belonging  to  the  com- 
mand in  charge  of  the  region  which  we  were  to  visit. 
He  was  another  example  which  upsets  certain  popular 
notions  of  Frenchmen  as  gesticulating,  excitable  little 
men.  Some  six  feet  two  in  height,  he  had  an  eye  that 
looked  straight  into  yours,  a  very  square  chin,  and  a 
fine  forehead.  You  had  only  to  look  at  him  and  size 
him  up  on  points  to  conclude  that  he  was  all  there; 
that  he  knew  his  work. 

"  Well,  we've  got  good  weather  for  it  to-day, 
monsieur,"  said  a  voice  out  of  a  goatskin  coat,  and  I 
found  we  had  the  same  chauffeur  as  before.  These 
French  privates  talk  to  you  and  you  talk  to  them. 
They  are  not  simply  moulds  of  flesh  in  military  form 
who  salute  and  salute  and  salute.  They  take  an  in- 
terest in  your  affairs  and  you  take  an  interest  in  theirs; 
they  make  you  feel  like  home  folks. 

The  sun  was  shining  —  a  warm  winter  sun  like  that 
of  a  February  thaw  in  our  Northern  States  —  glisten- 
ing on  the  snowy  fields  and  slopes  among  the  for- 
ests and  tree-clad  hills  of  the  mountainous  country. 
Faces  ambushed  in  whiskers  thought  it  was  a  good  day 
for  trimming  beards  and  washing  clothes.  The  sen- 
tries along  the  roads  had  their  scarfs  around  their 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  179 

necks  instead  of  over  their  ears.  A  French  soldier 
makes  ear  muffs,  chest  protector,  nightcap,  and  a  blan- 
ket out  of  the  scarf  which  wife  or  sister  knits  for  him. 
If  any  woman  who  reads  this  knits  one  to  send  to 
France  she  may  be  sure  that  the  fellow  who  received 
it  will  get  every  stitch's  worth  out  of  it. 

To-day,  then,  it  was  war  without  mittens.  You  did 
not  have  to  sound  the  bugle  to  get  soldiers  out  of  their 
burrows  or  their  houses.  Our  first  stop  was  at  our 
own  request,  in  a  village  where  groups  of  soldiers  were 
taking  a  sun  bath.  More  came  out  of  the  doors  as 
we  alighted.  They  were  all  in  the  late  twenties  or 
early  thirties,  men  of  a  reserve  regiment.  Some  had 
been  clerks,  some  labourers,  some  farmers,  some  em- 
ployers, when  the  war  began.  Then  they  were  piou- 
pious,  in  French  slang;  then  all  France  prayed  god- 
speed to  Its  beloved  piou-pious.  Then  you  knew  the 
clerk  by  his  pallor;  the  labourer  by  his  hard  hands; 
the  employer  by  his  manner  of  command.  Now  they 
were  poiliis  —  bearded,  hard-eyed  veterans;  you  could 
not  tell  the  clerk  from  the  labourer  or  the  employer 
from  the  peasant. 

Any  one  who  saw  the  tenderfoot  pilgrimage  to  the 
Alaskan  gold  field  in  '97-98  and  the  same  crowd  six 
months  later  will  understand  what  had  happened  to 
these  men.  The  puny  had  put  on  muscle;  the  city 
dweller  had  blown  his  lungs ;  the  fat  man  had  lost  some 
adipose;  social  differences  of  habit  had  disappeared. 
That  gentleman  used  to  his  bath  and  linen  sheets  and 
the  hard  living  farmer  or  labourer  —  all  had  had  to 
eat  the  same  kind  of  food,  do  the  same  work,  run  the 
same  risks  in  battle,  and  sleep  side  by  side  In  the  houses 
where  they  were  lodged  and  in  the  dugouts  of  the 
trenches  when  it  was  their  turn  to  occupy  them  through 


i8o  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  winter.  Any  "  snob  "  had  his  edges  trimmed  by 
the  banter  of  his  comrades.  Their  beards  accentuated 
the  likeness  of  type.  A  cheery  lot  of  faces  and  in- 
telligent, these,  which  greeted  us  with  curious  inter- 
est. 

"  Perhaps  President  Wilson  will  make  peace,"  one 
said. 

"When?"  I  asked. 

A  shrug  of  the  shoulder,  a  gesture  to  the  East,  and 
the  answer  was : 

*'  When  we  have  Alsace-Lorraine  back." 

Under  a  shed  their  dejeuner  was  cooking.  This 
meal  at  noon  Is  the  meal  of  the  day  to  the  average 
Frenchman,  who  has  only  bread  and  coffee  in  the  morn- 
ing. They  say  he  objects  to  fighting  at  luncheon  time. 
That  Is  the  hour  when  he  wants  to  sit  down  and  for- 
get his  work  and  laugh  and  talk  and  enjoy  his  eating. 
The  Germans  found  this  out  and  tried  to  take  his 
trenches  at  the  noon  hour.  This  interference  with  his 
gastronomic  habits  made  him  so  angry  that  he  dropped 
the  knife  and  fork  for  the  bayonet  and  took  back  any 
lost  ground  In  a  ferocious  counter-attack.  He  would 
teach  those  "  Bodies  "  to  leave  him  to  eat  his  dejeuner 
in  peace. 

That  appetising  stew  In  the  kettles  In  the  shed  once 
more  proved  that  Frenchmen  know  how  to  cook.  I 
didn't  blame  them  for  objecting  to  being  shot  at  by 
the  Germans  when  they  were  about  to  eat  It.  The 
average  French  soldier  is  better  fed  than  at  home;  he 
gets  more  meat,  for  a  hungry  soldier  is  usually  a  poor 
soldier.  It  Is  a  very  simple  problem  with  France's 
fine  roads  to  feed  that  long  line  when  it  is  stationary. 
It  is  Hke  feeding  a  city  stretched  out  over  a  distance  of 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  i8i 

four  hundred  and  fifty  miles;  a  stated  number  of 
ounces  each  day  for  each  man  and  a  known  number  of 
men  to  feed.  From  the  railroad  head  trucks  and 
autobusses  take  the  supplies  up  to  the  distributing 
points.  At  one  place  I  saw  ten  Paris  autobusses,  their 
signs  painted  out  in  a  steel-grey  to  hide  them  from 
aeroplanes,  and  not  one  of  them  had  broken  down 
through  the  war.  The  French  take  good  care  of  their 
equipment  and  their  clothes;  they  waste  no  food.  As 
a  people  is,  so  is  their  army,  and  the  French  are  thrifty 
by  nature. 

Father  Joffre,  as  the  soldiers  call  him,  Is  running  the 
next  largest  boarding  establishment  in  Europe  after 
the  Kaiser  and  the  Czar.  And  he  has  a  happy  fam- 
ily. It  seemed  to  me  that  life  ought  to  have  been 
utterly  dull  for  this  characteristic  group  of  poiliis,  liv- 
ing crowded  together  all  winter  in  a  remote  village. 
Civilians  sequestered  in  this  fashion  away  from  home 
are  inclined  to  get  grouchy  on  one  another. 

One  of  the  officers  in  speaking  of  this  said  that  early 
in  the  autumn  the  reserves  were  pretty  homesick. 
They  wanted  to  get  back  to  their  wives  and  children. 
Nostalgia,  next  to  hunger,  is  the  worst  thing  for  a 
soldier.  Commanders  were  worried.  But  as  the 
winter  wore  on  the  spirit  changed.  The  soldiers  be- 
gan to  feel  the  spell  of  their  democratic  comradeship. 
The  fact  that  they  had  fought  together  and  survived 
together  played  its  part;  and  individualism  was  sunk 
in  the  one  thought  that  they  were  there  for  France. 
The  fellowship  of  a  cause  taught  them  patience, 
brought  them  cheer.  And  another  thing  was  the  in- 
creasing sense  of  team  play,  of  confidence  in  victory, 
which  holds  a  ball  team,  a  business  enterprise,  or  an 


1 82    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

army  together.  Every  day  the  organisation  of  the 
army  was  improving;  every  day  that  indescribable  and 
subtle  element  of  satisfaction  that  the  Germans  were 
securely  held  was  growing. 

Every  Frenchman  saves  something  of  his  Income; 
madame  sees  to  it  that  he  does.  He  knows  that  if  he 
dies  he  will  not  leave  wife  and  children  penniless. 
His  son,  not  yet  old  enough  to  fight,  will  come  on  to 
take  his  place.  Men  at  home  who  are  twenty-two  or 
three  and  unmarried,  men  who  are  twenty-eight  or 
thirty  and  not  long  married,  and  men  of  forty  with 
some  money  put  by,  will,  in  turn,  understand  how  their 
own  class  feels. 

In  ten  minutes  you  had  entered  Into  the  hearts  of 
this  single  company  in  a  way  that  made  you  feel  that 
you  had  got  into  the  heart  of  the  whole  French  army. 
When  you  asked  them  if  they  would  like  to  go  home 
they  didn't  say  "  No !  "  all  in  a  chorus,  as  if  that  were 
what  the  colonel  had  told  them  to  say.  They  obey  the 
colonel,  but  their  thoughts  are  their  own.  Otherwise, 
these  ruddy,  healthy  men,  representing  the  people  of 
France  and  not  the  cafes  of  Paris,  would  not  keep 
France  a  republic. 

Yes,  they  did  want  to  go  home.  They  did  want  to 
go  home.  They  wanted  their  wives  and  babies;  they 
wanted  to  sit  down  to  morning  coffee  at  their  own 
tables.  Lumps  rose  in  their  throats  at  the  suggestion. 
But  they  were  not  going  until  the  German  peril  was 
over  forever.  Why  stop  now,  only  to  have  another 
terrible  war  in  thirty  or  forty  years?  A  peace  that 
would  endure  must  be  won.  They  had  thought  that 
out  for  themselves.  They  would  not  stick  to  their 
determination  if  they  had  not.  This  is  the  way  of 
democracies.     Thus  every  one  was  conscious  that  he 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  183 

was  fighting  not  merely  to  win,  but  for  future  genera- 
tions. 

"  It  happened  that  this  great  struggle  which  we  had 
long  feared  came  in  our  day,  and  to  us  is  the  duty," 
said  one.  You  caught  the  spirit  of  comradeship  pass- 
ing the  time  with  jests  at  one  another's  expense.  One 
of  the  men  who  was  not  a  full  thirty-third  degree  poilu 
had  compromised  with  the  razor  on  a  moustache  as 
blazing  red  as  his  shock  of  hair. 

"  I  think  that  the  colonel  gave  him  the  tip  that  he 
would  light  the  way  for  the  Zeppelins,"  said  a  com- 
rade. 

"  Envy  I  Sheer  envy !  "  was  the  retort.  "  Look  at 
him!  "  and  he  pointed  at  some  scraggly  bunches  on 
chin  and  cheeks  which  resembled  a  young  grass  plat 
that  had  come  up  badly. 

"  I  don't  believe  in  air-tight  beards,"  was  the  re- 
sponse. 

When  I  produced  a  camera,  the  efFect  was  the  same 
as  it  always  is  with  soldiers  at  the  front.  They  all 
wanted  to  be  in  the  photograph,  on  the  chance  that 
the  folks  at  home  might  see  how  the  absent  son  or 
father  looked.  Would  I  send  them  one?  And  the 
address  was  like  this:  "Monsieur  Benevent,  Cor- 
poral of  Infantry,  i8th  Company,  5th  Battalion, 
299th  Regiment  of  Infantry,  Postal  Sector  No.  121," 
by  which  you  will  know  the  rural  free  delivery  methods 
along  the  French  front.  This  address  is  the  one  rift 
in  the  blank  wall  of  anonymity  which  hides  the  indi- 
viduality of  the  millions  under  Joffre.  Only  the  army 
knows  the  sector  and  the  number  of  the  regiment  in 
that  sector.  By  the  same  kind  of  a  card-index  sys- 
tem Joffre  might  lay  his  hand  on  any  one  of  his  mil- 
lions, each  a  human  being  with  all  a  human  being's 


1 84    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

individual  emotions,  who,  to  be  a  good  soldier,  must 
be  only  one  of  the  vast  multitude  of  obedient  chess- 
men. 

*'  We  are  ready  to  go  after  them  when  Father  Joffre 
says  the  word,"  all  agreed.  Joffre  has  proved  himself 
to  the  democracy,  which  means  the  enthusiastic  loyalty 
of  a  democracy's  intelligence. 

"  If  there  are  any  homesick  ones  we  should  find 
them  among  the  lot  here,"  said  mon  capitaine. 

These  were  the  men  who  had  not  been  long  married. 
They  were  not  yet  past  the  honeymoon  period;  they 
had  young  children  at  home;  perhaps  they  had  become 
fathers  since  they  went  to  war.  The  younger  men  of 
the  first  line  had  the  irresponsibility  and  the  ardour  of 
youth  which  makes  comradeship  easy. 

But  the  older  men,  the  Territorials  as  they  are 
called,  in  the  late  thirties  and  early  forties,  have  set- 
tled down  in  life.  Their  families  are  established; 
their  careers  settled;  some  of  them,  perhaps,  may  enjoy 
a  vacation  from  the  wife,  for  you  know  madame,  in 
France,  with  all  her  thrift,  can  be  a  little  bossy,  which 
is  not  saying  that  this  is  not  a  proper  tonic  for  her 
lord.  So  the  old  boys  seem  the  most  content  in  the 
fellowship  of  winter  quarters.  What  they  cannot 
stand  are  repeated,  long,  hard  marches;  their  legs  give 
out  under  the  load  of  rifle  and  pack.  But  their  hearts 
are  in  the  war,  and  right  there  is  one  very  practical 
reason  why  they  will  fight  well  —  and  they  have 
fought  better  as  they  hardened  with  time  and  the  old 
French  spirit  revived  in  their  blood. 

"  A  lions,  messieurs! "  said  the  tall  major,  who 
wanted  us  to  see  battle-fields.  It  required  no  escort  to 
tell  us  where  the  battle-field  was.  We  knew  it  when 
we  came  to  it  as  you  know  the  point  reached  by  high 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  185 

tide  on  the  sands  —  this  field  where  many  Gettysburgs 
were  fought  in  one  through  that  terrible  fortnight  in 
late  August  and  early  September,  when  the  future  of 
France  and  the  whole  world  hung  in  the  balance  — 
as  the  Germans  sought  to  reach  Paris  and  win  a  de- 
cisive victory  over  the  French  army.  Where  destruc- 
tion ended  there  the  German  invasion  reached  its 
limit. 

Forests  and  streams  and  ditches  and  railroad  cul- 
verts played  their  part  in  tactical  surprises,  as  they  did 
at  Gettysburg;  and  cemetery  walls,  too.  In  all  my 
battle-field  visits  in  Europe  I  have  not  seen  a  single 
cemetery  wall  that  was  not  loopholed.  But  the 
fences,  which  throughout  the  Civil  War  offered  im- 
pediment to  charges  and  screen  to  the  troops  which 
could  reach  them  first,  were  missing.  The  fields  lay 
in  bold  stretches,  because  it  is  the  business  of  young 
boys  and  girls  in  Lorraine  to  watch  the  cows  and  keep 
them  out  of  the  corn. 

We  stopped  at  a  crossroads  where  charges  met  and 
wrestled  back  and  forth  in  and  out  of  the  ditches. 
Fragments  of  shells  appeared  as  steps  scuffed  away 
the  thin  coating  of  snow.  I  picked  up  an  old  French 
cap,  with  a  slash  in  the  top  that  told  how  its  owner 
came  to  his  end,  and  near  by  a  German  helmet.  For 
there  are  souvenirs  in  plenty  lying  in  the  young  wheat 
which  was  sown  after  the  battle  was  over.  Millions 
of  little  nickel  bullets  are  ploughed  in  with  the  blood  of 
those  who  died  to  take  the  Kaiser  to  Paris  and  those 
who  died  to  keep  him  out  in  this  fighting  across  these 
fields  and  through  the  forests,  in  a  tug  of  war  of  give- 
and-take,  of  men  exhausted  after  nights  and  days 
under  fire,  men  with  bloodshot  eyes  sunk  deep  in  the 
sockets,  dust-laden,  blood-spattered,  with  forty  years 


1 86    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  latent  human  powder  breaking  forth  into  hell  when 
the  war  was  only  a  month  old  and  passion  was  at  a 
white  heat. 

Hasty  shelter  trenches  gridiron  the  land;  such 
trenches  as  breathless  men,  dropping  after  a  charge, 
threw  up  hurriedly  with  the  spades  that  they  carry  on 
their  backs,  to  give  them  a  little  cover.  And  there  is 
the  trench  that  stopped  the  Germans  —  the  trench 
which  they  charged  but  could  not  take.  It  lies  among 
shell-holes  so  thick  that  you  can  step  from  one  to  an- 
other. In  places  its  crest  is  torn  away,  which  means 
that  half  a  dozen  men  were  killed  in  a  group.  But 
reserves  filled  their  places.  They  kept  pouring  out 
their  stream  of  lead  which  German  courage  could  not 
endure.  Thus  far  and  no  farther  the  invasion  came 
in  that  wheat-field  which  will  be  ever  memorable. 

We  went  up  a  hill  once  crow^ned  by  one  of  those 
clusters  of  farm  buildings  of  stone  and  mortar,  where 
house  and  stables  and  granaries  are  close  together. 
All  around  were  bare  fields.  Those  farm  buildings 
stood  up  like  a  mountain  peak.  The  French  had  the 
hill  and  lost  it  and  recovered  it.  Whichever  side  had 
it,  the  other  was  bound  to  bathe  It  in  shells  because  it 
commanded  the  country  around.  The  value  of  prop- 
erty meant  nothing.  All  that  counted  was  military 
advantage.  Because  churches  are  often  on  hilltops, 
because  they  are  bound  to  be  used  for  lookouts,  is 
why  they  get  torn  to  pieces.  When  two  men  are 
fighting  for  life  they  don't  bother  about  upsetting  a 
table  with  a  vase,  or  notice  any  "  Keep  off  the  grass  " 
signs;  no,  not  even  if  the  family  Bible  be  underfoot. 

None  of  the  roof,  none  of  the  superstructure  of 
these  farm  buildings  was  left;  only  the  lower  walls, 
which  were  eighteen  inches  thick  and  in  places  pene- 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  187 

trated  by  the  shells.  For  when  a  Frenchman  builds 
a  farmhouse  he  builds  It  to  last  a  few  hundred  years. 
The  farm  windmill  was  as  twisted  as  a  birdcage  that 
has  been  rolled  under  a  trolley  car,  but  a  large  hay- 
rake  was  unharmed.  Such  Is  the  luck  of  war.  I 
made  up  my  mind  that  If  I  ever  got  under  shell-fire 
I'd  make  for  the  hayrake  and  avoid  the  windmill. 

Our  tall  major  pointed  out  all  the  fluctuating  po- 
sitions during  the  battle.  It  was  like  hearing  a  chess 
match  explained  from  memory  by  an  expert.  Words 
to  him  were  something  precious.  He  made  each  one 
count  as  he  would  the  shots  from  his  cannon.  His 
narrative  had  the  lucidity  of  a  terse  judge  reviewing 
evidence.  The  battle-field  was  etched  on  his  mind  in 
every  Important  phase  of  Its  action. 

Not  once  did  he  speak  In  abuse  of  the  enemy.  The 
staff  officer  who  directs  steel  ringing  on  steel  Is  too 
busy  thrusting  and  keeping  guard  to  Indulge  In  dia- 
tribes. To  him  the  enemy  Is  a  powerful  impersonal 
devil  who  must  be  beaten.  When  I  asked  about  the 
conduct  of  the  Germans  in  the  towns  they  occupied, 
his  lip  tightened  and  his  eyes  grew  hard. 

"  I'm  afraid  It  was  pretty  bad!  "  he  said;  as  If  he 
felt,  besides  the  wrong  to  his  own  people,  the  shame 
that  men  who  had  fought  so  bravely  should  act  so  111. 
I  think  his  attitude  toward  war  was  this :  "  We  will 
die  for  France,  but  calling  the  Germans  names  will 
not  help  us  to  win.     It  only  takes  breath." 

"  Allans,  messieurs!  " 

As  our  car  ran  up  a  gentle  hill  we  noticed  two 
soldiers  driving  a  load  of  manure.  This  seemed  a 
pretty  prosaic,  even  humiliating,  business,  In  a  poetic 
sense,  for  the  brave  poilus,  veterans  of  Lorraine's 
great  battle.     But  Father  Joffre  is  a  true  Frenchman 


1 88    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  his  time.  Why  shouldn't  the  soldiers  help  the 
farmers  whose  sons  are  away  at  the  front  and  perhaps 
helping  farmers  back  of  some  other  point  of  the  line? 

Over  the  crest  of  the  hill  we  came  on  long  lines  of 
soldiers  bearing  timbers  and  fascines  for  trench  build- 
ing, which  explained  why  some  of  the  villages  were 
empty.  A  fascine  is  something  usually  made  of 
woven  branches  which  will  hold  dirt  in  position.  The 
woven  wicker  cases  for  shells  which  the  German  artil- 
lery uses  and  leaves  behind  when  it  has  to  quit  the  field 
in  a  hurry,  make  excellent  fascines,  and  a  number 
that  I  saw  were  of  this  ready-made  kind.  After 
carrying  shells  for  killing  Frenchmen  they  were  to  pro- 
tect the  lives  of  Frenchmen.  Near  by  other  soldiers 
were  turning  up  a  strip  of  fresh  earth  against  the 
snow,  which  looked  hke  a  rip  in  the  frosting  of  a 
chocolate  cake. 

"  How  do  you  like  this  kind  of  war?  "  we  asked. 
It  Is  the  kind  that  irrigationists  and  subway  excavators 
do. 

"  We've  grown  to  be  very  fond  of  it,"  was  the  an- 
swer. "  It  is  a  cultivated  taste,  which  becomes  a  pas- 
sion wath  experience.  After  you  have  been  shot  at  in 
the  open  you  want  all  the  earth  you  can  get  between 
you  and  the  bullets." 

Now  we  alighted  from  the  automobile  and  went 
forward  on  foot.  We  passed  some  eight  lines  of 
trenches  before  we  came  to  the  one  where  we  were 
to  stop.  A  practised  military  eye  had  gone  over  all 
that  ground;  a  practised  military  hand  had  laid  out 
each  trench.  After  the  work  was  done  the  civilian's 
eye  could  grasp  the  principle.  If  one  trench  were 
taken,  the  men  knew  exactly  how  to  fall  back  on  the 
next,  which  commanded  the  ground  they  had  left. 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  189 

The  trenches  were  not  continuous.  There  were  open 
spaces  left  purposely.  All  that  front  was  literally 
locked,  and  double  and  triple  locked,  with  trenches. 
Break  through  one  barred  door  and  there  is  another 
and  another  confronting  you.  Considering  the  mil- 
lions of  burrowing  and  digging  and  watching  soldiers, 
it  occurred  to  one  that  if  a  marmite  (saucepan)  came 
along  and  buried  our  Httle  party,  our  loss  would  not  be 
as  much  noticed  as  if  a  piece  of  coping  from  a  high 
building  had  fallen  and  extinguished  us  on  Broadway, 
which  would  be  a  relatively  novel  way  of  dying.  Be- 
ing killed  in  war  had  long  ceased  to  be  a  novelty  on 
the  continent  of  Europe. 

We  seemed  in  a  dead  world,  except  for  the 
leisurely,  hoarse,  muffled  reports  of  a  French  gun  in 
the  woods  on  either  side  of  the  open  space  where  we 
stood.  Through  our  glasses  we  could  see  quite 
clearly  the  line  of  the  German  front  trench,  which  was 
in  the  outskirts  of  a  village  on  higher  ground  than  the 
French.  Not  a  human  being  was  visible.  Both  sides 
were  watching  for  any  move  of  the  other  and  mean- 
while lying  tight  under  cover.  By  day  they  were 
marooned.  All  supplies  and  all  reliefs  of  men  who 
are  to  take  their  turn  in  front  go  out  by  night. 

There  were  no  men  in  the  trench  where  we  stood; 
those  who  would  man  it  in  case  of  danger  were  in  the 
adjoining  woods,  where  they  had  only  to  cut  down  sap- 
lings and  make  shelters  to  be  as  comfortable  as  in  a 
winter  resort  camp  in  the  Adirondacks.  Any  minute 
they  might  receive  a  call  —  which  meant  death  for 
many.  But  they  were  used  to  that,  and  their  card 
games  went  on  none  the  less  merrily. 

**  No  farther?  "  we  asked  our  major. 

"  No  farther  I  "  he  said.     "  This  is  risk  enough  for 


190    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

you.  It  looks  very  peaceful,  but  the  enemy  could  toss 
in  some  marmites  if  it  pleased  him."  Perhaps  he  was 
exaggerating  the  risk  for  the  sake  of  a  realistic  effect 
on  the  sightseers.  No  matter!  In  time  one  was  to 
have  risks  enough  in  trenches.  It  was  on  such  an  oc- 
casion as  this,  on  another  part  of  the  French  line,  that 
two  correspondents  slipped  away  from  the  officers  con- 
ducting them,  though  their  word  of  honour  was  given 
not  to  do  so  —  which  adds  another  reason  for  mili- 
tary suspicion  of  the  press.  The  officers  rang  up  the 
nearest  telephone  which  connected  with  the  front 
trenches,  the  batteries,  and  regimental  and  brigade 
headquarters,  to  apprehend  two  men  of  such-and-such 
description.  They  were  taken  as  easily  as  a  one-eyed, 
one-eared  man,  with  a  wooden  leg  and  red  hair,  would 
be  in  trying  to  get  out  of  police  headquarters  when  the 
doorman  had  his  Bertillon  photograph  and  measure- 
ments to  go  by. 

That  battery  hidden  from  aerial  observation  in  the 
thick  forest  kept  up  its  slow  firing  at  intervals.  It 
was  "  bothering "  one  of  the  German  trenches. 
Fiendish  the  consistent  regularity  with  which  it  kept 
on,  and  so  easy  for  the  gunners.  They  had  only  to 
slip  in  a  shell,  swing  a  breechlock  home,  and  pull  a 
lanyard.  The  German  guns  did  not  respond  because 
they  could  not  locate  the  French  battery.  They  may 
have  known  that  it  was  somewhere  in  the  forest,  but 
firing  at  two  or  three  hundred  acres  of  wood  on  the 
chance  of  reaching  some  guns  heavily  protected  by 
earth  and  timbering  was  about  like  tossing  a  pea  from 
the  top  of  the  Washington  Monument  on  the  chance 
of  hitting  a  four-leafed  clover  on  the  lawn  below. 

Our  little  group  remained,  not  standing  in  the 
trench,  but  back  of  it  in  full  relief  for  some  time ;  for 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  191 

the  German  gunners  refused  to  play  for  realism  by 
sending  us  a  marmite.  Probably  they  had  seen  us 
through  the  telescope  at  the  start  and  concluded  we 
weren't  worth  a  shot.  In  the  first  months  of  the  war 
such  a  target  would  have  received  a  burst  of  shells, 
for  the  fun  of  seeing  us  scatter,  if  nothing  else.  Then 
ammunition  was  plentiful  and  the  sport  of  shooting 
had  not  lost  its  zest;  but  in  these  winter  days  orders 
were  not  to  waste  ammunition.  The  factories  must 
manufacture  a  supply  ahead  for  the  summer  campaign. 
There  must  be  fifteen  dollars'  worth  of  target  in 
sight,  say,  for  the  smallest  shell  costs  that;  and  the 
shorter  you  are  of  shells  the  more  valuable  the  target 
must  be.  Besides,  firing  a  cannon  had  become  as 
commonplace  a  function  to  both  French  and  German 
gunners  as  getting  up  to  put  another  stick  of  wood  in 
the  stove  or  going  to  open  the  door  to  take  a  letter 
from  the  postman. 

We  had  glimpses  of  other  trenches;  but  this  Is  not 
the  place  in  this  book  to  write  of  trenches.  We  shall 
see  trenches  till  we  are  weary  of  them  later.  We  are 
going  direct  to  Gerbeviller,  which  was  —  emphasis  on 
the  past  tense  —  a  typical  little  Lorraine  town  of  fif- 
teen hundred  inhabitants.  Look  where  you  would 
now,  as  we  drove  along  the  road,  and  you  saw  churches 
without  steeples,  houses  with  roofs  standing  on  sec- 
tions of  walls,  houses  smashed  into  bits. 

"  I  saw  no  such  widespread  destruction  as  this  in 
Belgium !  "  I  exclaimed. 

"  There  was  no  such  fighting  in  Belgium,"  was  the 
answer. 

Of  course  not,  except  in  the  southwestern  corner, 
where  the  armies  still  face  each  other. 

"  Not  all  the  damage  was  done  by  the  Germans," 


192    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  major  explained.  "  Naturally,  when  they  were 
pouring  in  death  from  the  cover  of  a  house,  our  guns 
let  drive  at  that  house,"  he  went  on.  "  The  owners 
of  the  houses  that  were  hit  by  our  shells  are  rather 
proud  —  proud  of  our  marksmanship,  proud  that  we 
gave  the  unwelcome  guest  a  hot  pill  to  swallow." 

For  ten  days  the  Bavarians  had  Gerbeviller.  They 
tore  it  to  pieces  before  they  got  it,  then  burned  the 
remains  because  they  said  the  population  sniped  at 
them.  All  the  orgy  of  Louvain  was  repeated  here, 
unchronicled  to  our  people  at  home.  The  church 
looks  like  a  Swiss  cheese  from  shell-holes.  Its 
steeple  was  bound  to  be  an  observation  post,  reasoned 
the  Germans;  so  they  poured  shells  into  it.  But  the 
brewery  had  a  tall  chimney  which  was  an  even  better 
lookout,  and  the  brewery  is  the  one  building  unharmed 
in  the  town.  The  Bavarians  knew  that  they  would 
need  that  for  their  commissariat.  For  a  Bavarian 
will  not  fight  without  his  beer.  The  land  was  littered 
with  barrels  after  they  had  gone.  I  saw  some  in 
trenches  occupied  by  Bavarian  reserves  not  far  back 
of  where  their  firing-line  had  been. 

"  However,  the  fact  that  the  brewery  is  intact  and 
the  church  in  ruins  does  not  prove  that  a  brewery  is 
better  than  a  church.  It  only  proves  which  is  -the 
Lord's  side  in  this  war,"  said  Sister  Julie.  But  I  get 
ahead  of  my  story. 

In  the  middle  of  the  main  street  were  half  a  dozen 
smoke-blackened  houses  which  remained  standing,  an 
oasis  in  the  sea  of  destruction,  with  doors  and  win- 
dows intact,  facing  gaps  where  doors  and  windows  had 
been.  We  entered  with  a  sense  of  awe  of  the  chance 
which  had  spared  these  buildings. 

"  Sister  Juhe!  "  the  major  called. 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  193 

A  short,  sturdy  nun  of  about  sixty  years  answered 
cheerily  and  appeared  in  the  dark  hall.  She  led  us 
into  the  sitting-room,  where  she  spryly  placed  chairs 
for  our  little  party.  She  was  smiling;  her  eyes  were 
sparkling  with  a  hospitable  and  kindly  interest  in  us, 
while  I  felt,  on  my  part,  that  thrill  of  curiosity  that 
one  always  has  when  he  meets  some  celebrated  person 
for  the  first  time  —  a  curiosity  no  less  keen  than  if  I 
were  to  meet  Barbara  Frietchie. 

Through  all  that  battle  of  ten  days,  with  the  can- 
non never  silent  day  or  night,  with  shells  screaming 
overhead  and  crashing  into  houses;  through  ten  days 
of  thunder  and  lightning  and  earthquake,  she  and  her 
four  sister  associates  remained  in  Gerbeviller.  When 
the  town  was  fired  they  moved  from  one  building  to 
another.  They  nursed  both  wounded  French  and 
Germans,  also  wounded  townspeople  who  could  not 
flee  with  the  others. 

"  You  were  not  frightened?  You  did  not  think  of 
going  away?  "  she  was  asked. 

"Frightened?"  she  answered.  "I  had  not  time 
to  think  of  that.  Go  away?  How  could  I  when  the 
Lord's  work  had  come  to  me?  " 

President  Poincare  went  in  person  to  give  her  the 
Legion  of  Honour,  the  first  given  to  a  woman  in  this 
war;  so  rarely  given  to  a  woman,  and  here  bestowed 
with  the  love  of  a  nation.  Sister  Marie  was  in  the 
kitchen  at  the  time,  very  busy  cooking  the  meal  for 
the  sick  whom  the  sisters  are  still  caring  for.  So  Sis- 
ter Julie  took  the  President  of  France  into  the  kitchen 
to  meet  Sister  Marie,  quite  as  she  would  take  you  or 
me.  A  human  being  is  simply  a  human  being  to  Sister 
Julie,  to  be  treated  courteously;  and  great  men  may 
not  cause  a  meal  for  the  sick  to  burn.     After  the  com- 


194    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

plexity  of  French  politics,  President  Poincare  was  any- 
thing but  unfavourably  impressed  by  the  incident. 

"  He  was  such  a  httle  man,  I  could  not  believe  at 
first  that  he  could  be  President,"  she  said.  "  I 
thought  that  the  president  of  France  would  be  a  big 
man.  But  he  was  very  agreeable  and,  I  am  sure,  very 
wise.  Then  there  were  other  men  with  him,  a  Mon- 
sieur de-de-Deschanel,  who  was  president  of  some- 
thing or  other  in  Paris,  and  Monsieur  du-du  —  yes, 
that  was  it,  Du  Bag.  He  also  is  president  of  some- 
thing in  Paris.     They  were  very  agreeable,  too." 

"  And  your  Legion  of  Honour?  " 

"  Oh,  my  medal  that  M.  le  President  gave  me  I  I 
keep  that  in  a  drawer.  I  do  not  wear  it  every  day 
when  I  am  in  my  working  clothes." 

"  Have  you  ever  been  to  Paris?  " 

"  No,  monsieur." 

"  They  will  make  a  great  ado  over  you  when  you 

"  I  must  stay  In  Gerbeviller.  If  I  stayed  during 
the  fighting  and  when  the  Germans  were  here,  why 
should  I  leave  now?  Gerbeviller  is  my  home. 
There  is  much  to  do  here,  and  there  will  be  more  to 
do  when  the  people  who  were  driven  away  return." 

These  nuns  saw  their  townspeople  stood  up  against 
a  wall  and  shot;  they  saw  their  townspeople  killed  by 
shells.  The  cornucopia  of  war's  horrors  was  emptied 
at  their  door.  And  women  of  a  provincial  town,  who 
had  led  peaceful,  cloistered  lives,  they  did  not  blench 
or  falter  in  the  presence  of  ghastliness  which  only  men 
are  supposed  to  have  the  stoicism  to  witness. 

What  feature  of  the  nightmare  had  held  most  viv- 
idly in  Sister  Julie's  mind?  It  is  hard  to  say;  but  the 
one  which  she  dwelt  on  was  about  the  boy  and  the  cow. 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  195 

The  invaders,  when  they  came  In,  ordered  that  no  In- 
habitant leave  his  house,  on  pain  of  death.  A  boy  of 
ten  took  his  cow  to  pasture  in  the  morning  as  usual. 
He  did  not  see  anything  wrong  in  that.  The  cow 
ought  to  go  to  pasture.  And  he  was  shot,  for  he 
broke  a  military  regulation.  He  might  have  been  a 
spy  using  the  cow  as  a  blind.  War  does  not  bother  to 
discriminate.     It  kills. 

Sister  Julie  can  enjoy  a  joke,  particularly  on  the 
Germans,  and  her  cheerful  smile  and  genuine  laugh 
are  a  lesson  to  all  people  who  draw  long  faces  in  time 
of  trouble  and  weep  over  spilt  milk.  A  buoyant  tem- 
perament and  unshaken  faith  carried  her  through  her 
ordeal.  Though  her  hair  is  white,  youth's  optimism 
and  confidence  in  the  future  and  the  joy  of  victory  for 
France  overshadowed  the  present.  The  town  and 
church  would  be  rebuilt;  children  would  play  in  the 
streets  again;  there  was  a  lot  of  the  Lord's  work  to  do 
yet. 

In  every  word  and  thought  she  is  French  —  French 
in  her  liveliness  of  spirit  and  quickness  of  comprehen- 
sion; wholly  French  there  on  the  borderland  of  Ger- 
many. If  we  only  went  to  the  outskirts  of  the  town, 
she  reminded  us,  we  could  see  how  the  soldiers  of  her 
beloved  France  fought  and  why  she  was  happy  to  have 
remained  in  Gerbeviller  to  welcome  them  back. 

In  sight  of  that  intact  brewery  and  that  wreck  of  a 
church  is  a  gentle  slope  of  open  field,  cut  by  a  road. 
Along  the  crest  were  many  mounds  as  thick  as  the 
graves  of  a  cemetery,  and  by  the  side  of  the  road  was 
a  temporary  monument  above  a  big  mound,  sur- 
rounded by  a  sanded  walk  and  a  fence.  The  dead 
had  been  thickest  at  this  point,  and  here  they  had  been 
laid  In  a  vast  grave.     The  surviving  comrades  had 


196  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

made  that  monument;  and,  In  memory  of  what  the 
dead  had  fought  for,  the  living  said  that  they  were 
not  yet  ready  to  quit  fighting. 

Standing  on  thi^  crest,  you  were  a  thousand  yards 
away  from  the  edge  of  a  woods.  German  aeroplanes 
had  seen  the  French  massing  for  a  charge  under  the 
cover  of  that  crest;  but  French  aeroplanes  could  not 
see  what  was  in  the  woods.  Rifles  and  machine  guns 
poured  a  spray  of  lead  across  the  crest  when  the 
French  appeared.  But  the  French,  who  were  fighting 
for  Sister  Julie's  town,  would  not  stop  their  rush  at 
first.  They  kept  on,  as  Pickett's  men  did  when  the 
Federal  guns  riddled  their  ranks  with  grapeshot. 
This  accounts  for  many  of  the  mounds  being  well  be- 
yond the  crest.  The  Germans  made  a  mistake  in  fir- 
ing too  soon.  They  would  have  made  a  heavier  kill- 
ing if  they  had  allowed  the  charge  to  go  farther. 
After  the  French  fell  back,  for  two  days  and  nights 
their  wounded  lay  out  on  that  field  without  water  or 
food,  between  the  two  forces,  and  if  their  comrades 
approached  to  give  succour  the  machine  guns  blazed 
more  death,  because  the  Germans  did  not  want  to  let 
the  French  dig  a  trench  on  the  crest.  After  two  days 
the  French  forced  the  Germans  out  of  the  woods  by 
hitting  them  from  another  point. 

We  went  over  the  field  of  another  charge  half  a 
mile  away.  There  a  French  regiment  put  a  stream 
with  a  single  bridge  at  their  back  —  which  requires 
some  nerve  —  and  charged  a  German  trench  on  rising 
ground.  They  took  it.  Then  they  tried  to  take  the 
woods  beyond.  Before  they  were  checked  twenty- 
two  officers  out  of  a  total  of  thirty  fell.  But  they  did 
not  give  up  the  ground  they  had  won.  They  bur- 
rowed into  the  earth  in  a  trench  of  their  own,  and 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  197 

when  help  came  they  put  the  Germans  out  of  the 
woods. 

The  men  of  this  regiment  were  not  first  line,  but 
the  older  fellows  —  men  of  the  t>'pe  we  stopped  to 
chat  with  in  the  village  —  hastening  to  the  front  when 
the  war  began.  Their  officers  were  mostly  reserves, 
too,  who  left  their  civil  occupations  at  the  call  of  arms. 
One  of  the  eight  survivors  of  the  thirty  was  with  us, 
a  stocky  little  man,  hardly  looking  the  hero  or  the 
soldier.  I  expressed  my  admiration,  and  he  answered 
quietly:  "  It  was  for  France!  "  How  often  I  have 
heaid  that  as  a  reason  for  courage  or  sacrifice!  The 
brave  enemies  of  France  have  learned  to  respect  it, 
though  they  had  a  poor  opinion  of  the  French  army 
before  the  war  began.  "  That  railroad  bridge  yon- 
der the  Germans  left  intact  when  they  occupied  it 
because  they  were  certain  that  they  would  need  it  to 
supply  their  troops  when  they  took  the  Gap  of  Mire- 
court  and  surrounded  the  French  army,"  I  was  told. 
"  However,  they  had  to  go  in  such  a  hurry  that  they 
failed  to  mine  it.  They  must  have  fired  five  hundred 
shells  afterward  to  destroy  it,  in  vain." 

It  was  dusk  when  we  entered  the  city  of  Luneville 
for  the  second  time.  Whole  blocks  lay  In  ruins; 
others  only  showed  where  shells  had  crashed  into 
walls.  It  is  hard  to  estimate  just  how  much  damage 
shell-fire  has  done  to  a  town,  for  you  see  the  effects 
only  where  they  have  struck  on  the  street  sides  and  not 
when  they  strike  in  the  centre  of  the  block.  But 
Luneville  has  certainly  suffered  as  much  as  Louvain, 
only  we  did  not  hear  about  it.  Grim,  sad  Louvain, 
with  its  sentries  among  the  ruins!  Happy,  trium- 
phant Luneville,  with  its  poilus  instead  of  German  sen- 
tries ! 


198    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

'*  We  are  going  to  meet  the  mayor,"  said  the  major. 

First  we  went  to  his  office.  But  that  was  a  mistake. 
We  were  invited  to  his  house,  which  was  a  fine,  old 
eighteenth-century  building.  If  you  could  transport  it 
to  New  York  some  arms-and-ammunition  millionaire 
would  give  half  a  million  dollars  for  it.  The  hallway 
was  smoke-blackened  and  a  burnt  spot  showed  where 
the  enemy  had  tried  to  set  it  on  fire  before  evacuating 
the  town.  An  ascent  of  a  handsome  old  staircase  and 
we  were  in  rooms  with  gilded  mirrors  and  carved  old 
mantels,  where  we  were  introduced  to  His  Honour,  a 
lively  man  of  forty. 

"  I  have  been  in  Amerique  two  months.  So  much 
English  do  I  speak.  No  more !  "  said  the  mayor 
merrily,  and  introduced  us  in  turn  to  his  wife,  who 
spoke  not  even  "  so  much  "  English,  but  French  as 
fast  and  as  piquantly  as  only  a  Frenchwoman  can. 
Her  only  son,  who  was  seventeen,  was  going  up  with 
the  19 1 6  class  of  recruits  very  soon.  He  was  a 
sturdy  youngster;  a  type  of  Young  France  who  will 
make  the  France  of  the  future. 

"  You  hate  to  see  him  go?  "  I  asked. 

"  It  Is  for  France!  "  she  answered. 

We  had  cakes  and  tea  and  a  merrier  —  at  least,  a 
more  heartfelt  —  party  than  at  any  mayor's  reception 
in  time  of  peace.  Everybody  talked.  For  the 
French  do  know  how  to  talk,  when  they  have  not 
turned  grim,  silent  soldiers.  Foreigners  say  we  do. 
Maybe  it  Is  a  democratic  weakness.  I  heard  story  on 
story  of  the  German  occupation,  and  how  the  mayor 
was  put  In  jail  and  held  as  hostage,  and  what  a  Ger- 
man general  said  to  him  when  he  was  brought  in  as  a 
prisoner  to  be  Interrogated  In  his  own  house,  which 
the  general  occupied  as  headquarters. 


SMILES  AMONG  RUINS  199 

Among  the  guests  was  the  wife  of  a  French  general 
in  her  Red  Cross  cap.  She  might  see  her  husband 
once  a  week  by  meeting  him  on  the  road  between  the 
city  and  the  front.  He  could  not  afford  to  be  any 
farther  from  his  post,  lest  the  Germans  spring  a  sur- 
prise. The  extent  of  the  information  which  he  gave 
her  was  that  all  went  well  for  France.  Father  Joffre 
plays  no  favourites  in  his  discipline. 

Happy,  happy  Lorraine  in  the  midst  of  its  ruins! 
Happy  because  her  adored  tricolour  floats  over  those 
ruins. 


XIV 

A   ROAD   OF   WAR   I   KNOW 

Victoria  Station  —  The  "tenth  man" — Leavetaking  —  Roar  of  Lon- 
don—  British  habits  —  Everywhere  khaki  —  System  at  the 
French  port  —  The  correspondents'  home  —  Strict  censorship  — 
The  one  link  with  the  reading  public  —  Necessity  for  censorship 
—  Freedom  of  the  press — "Jig-saw"  intelligence  experts  —  The 
run  of  the  trenches  —  Exchange  of  slang  —  Organisation  of  Gen- 
eral Headquarters  —  A  business  institution  —  A  colossal  dynamo. 

Other  armies  go  to  war  across  the  land,  but  the  Brit- 
ish go  across  the  sea.  They  take  the  Channel  ferry  in 
order  to  reach  the  front.  Theirs  is  the  home  road  of 
war  to  me ;  the  road  of  my  affections,  where  men  speak 
my  mother  tongue.  It  begins  on  the  platform  at 
Victoria  Station,  with  the  khaki  of  officers  and  men 
returning  from  leave,  relieved  by  the  warmer  colours 
of  women  who  have  come  to  say  good-bye  to  those 
they  love.  In  five  hours  from  the  time  of  starting 
one  may  be  across  that  ribbon  of  salt  water,  which 
means  much  in  isolation  and  little  in  distance,  and  in 
the  trenches. 

That  veteran  regular  —  let  us  separate  him  from 
the  crowd, —  is  a  type  I  have  often  seen,  a  t3^e  that 
has  become  as  familiar  as  one's  neighbours  in  one's 
own  town.  V^e  will  call  him  the  tenth  man.  That  is, 
of  every  ten  men  who  went  to  the  front  a  year  ago  in 
his  battalion,  nine  are  gone.  All  of  the  hardships  and 
all  of  the  terrors  of  war  he  has  witnessed:  men 
dropped  neatly  by  a  bullet;  men  mangled  by  shells. 

His  khaki  is  spotless,  thanks  to  his  wife,  who  has 

200 


A  ROAD  OF  WAR  I  KNOW         20i 

dressed  in  her  best  for  the  occasion.  Terrible  as  war 
itself,  but  new,  that  hat  of  hers,  which  probably  repre- 
sented a  good  deal  of  looking  into  windows  and  pric- 
ing; and  her  gown  of  the  cheapest  material,  drooping 
from  her  round  shoulders,  is  the  product  of  the  poor 
dressmaking  skill  of  hands  which  show  only  too  well 
who  does  all  the  housework  at  home.  The  children, 
a  boy  of  four  and  a  girl  of  seven,  are  in  their  best,  too, 
with  faces  scrubbed  till  they  shine. 

You  will  see  like  scenes  in  stations  at  home  when  the 
father  has  found  work  in  a  distant  city  and  is  going  on 
ahead  to  get  established  before  the  family  follow  him. 
Such  incidents  are  common  in  civil  life;  they  became 
common  at  Victoria  Station.  What  is  common  has 
no  significance,  editors  say. 

When  the  time  came  to  go  through  the  gate,  the  vet- 
eran picked  the  boy  up  in  his  arms  and  pressed  him 
very  close  and  the  little  girl  looked  on  wonderingly, 
while  the  mother  was  not  going  to  make  it  any  harder 
for  the  father  by  tears.  "Good-bye,  Tom!"  she 
said.     So  his  name  was  Tom,  this  tenth  man. 

I  spoke  with  him.  His  battalion  was  full  with  re- 
cruits. It  had  been  kept  full.  But,  considering  the 
law  of  chance,  what  about  the  surviving  one  out  of 
an  original  ten? 

"  Yes,  I've  had  my  luck  with  me,"  he  said,  "  Prob- 
ably my  turn  will  come.  Maybe  I'll  never  see  the 
wife  and  kids  again." 

The  morning  roar  of  London  had  begun.  That 
station  was  a  small  spot  in  the  city.  There  were  not 
enough  officers  and  men  taking  the  train  to  make  up 
a  day's  casualty  list;  for  ours  was  only  a  small  party 
returning  from  leave.  The  transports,  unseen,  car- 
ried the  multitudes.     Wherever  one  had  gone  in  Eng- 


202    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

land  he  had  seen  soldiers  and  wherever  he  went  in 
France  he  was  to  see  still  more  soldiers.  England  had 
become  an  armed  camp;  and  England  plodded  on, 
*'  muddled  "  on,  preparing,  ever  preparing,  to  forge 
in  time  of  war  the  thunderbolt  for  war  which  was  un- 
dreamed of  in  time  of  peace  when  other  nations  were 
forging  their  thunderbolts. 

Still  the  recruiting  posters  called  for  more  soldiers 
and  the  casualty  lists  appeared  day  after  day  with 
the  regularity  of  want  advertisements.  Imagine  eight 
million  men  under  arms  in  the  United  States  and  you 
have  the  equivalent  to  what  England  did  by  the  vol- 
unteer system.  The  more  there  were  the  more  pessi- 
mistic became  the  British  press.  Pessimism  brought  in 
recruits.  Bad  news  made  England  take  another  deep 
breath  of  energising  determination.  It  was  the  last 
battle  which  was  decisive.  She  had  always  won  that. 
She  would  win  It  again. 

They  talk  of  war  aboard  the  Pullman,  after  officers 
have  waved  their  hands  out  of  the  windows  to  their 
wives,  quite  as  if  they  were  going  to  Scotland  for  a 
week-end  instead  of  back  to  the  firing-line.  British 
phlegm  that  is  called.  No,  British  habit,  I  should  say, 
the  race-bred,  individualistic  quality  of  never  parading 
emotions  In  public,  the  instinct  of  keeping  things 
which  are  one's  own  to  one's  self.  Personally,  I  like 
this  way.  In  one  form  or  another,  as  the  hedges  fly 
by  the  train  windows,  the  subject  is  always  war.  War 
creeps  into  golf,  or  shooting,  or  investments,  or  pol- 
itics. Only  one  suggestion  quite  frees  the  mind  from 
the  omnipresent  theme:  Will  the  Channel  be  smooth? 
The  Germans  have  nothing  to  do  with  that.  It  is 
purely  a  matter  of  weather.     Bad  sailors  are  more 


A  ROAD  OF  WAR  I  KNOW  203 

worried  about  the  crossing  than  about  the  shell-fire 
they  are  going  to  face. 

With  bad  sailors  or  good  sailors,  the  significant 
thing  which  had  become  a  commonplace  was  that  the 
Channel  was  a  safely-guarded  British  sea  lane.  In 
all  my  crossings  I  was  never  delayed.  For  England 
had  one  thunderbolt  ready  forged  when  the  war  began. 
The  only  submarines,  or  destroyers,  or  dirigibles  that 
one  saw  were  hers.  Antennae  these  of  the  great  fleet 
waiting  with  the  threat  of  stored  lightning  ready  to  be 
flashed  from  gun-mouths;  a  threat  as  efficacious  as 
action,  in  nowise  mysterious  or  subtle,  but  definite  as 
steel  and  powder,  speaking  the  will  of  a  people  in 
their  chosen  field  of  power,  felt  over  all  the  seas  of  the 
world,  coast  of  Maine  and  the  Carolinas  no  less  than 
Labrador.  Thousands  of  transports  had  come  and 
gone,  carrying  hundreds  of  thousands  of  soldiers  and 
food  for  men  and  guns  to  India ;  and  on  the  highroad 
to  India,  to  Australia,  to  San  Francisco,  shipping  went 
its  way  undisturbed  by  anything  that  dives  or  flies. 

The  same  white  hospital  ships  lying  in  that  French 
harbour;  the  same  line  of  grey,  dust>'-looking  ambu- 
lances parked  on  the  quay!  Everybody  in  that  one- 
time sleepy,  week-end  tourist  resort  seems  to  be  in  uni- 
form; to  have  something  to  do  with  war.  All  sur- 
roundings become  those  of  war  long  before  you  reach 
the  front.  That  knot  of  civilians,  waiting  their  turn 
for  another  examination  of  the  same  kind  as  that  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Channel,  have  shown  good 
reasons  for  going  to  Paris  to  the  French  consul  in  Lon- 
don, or  they  might  not  proceed  even  this  far  on  the 
road  of  war.  They  seem  outcasts  —  a  humble  lot  in 
the  variegated  costumes  of  the  civil  world  —  outcasts 


204  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

from  the  disciplined  world  in  its  pattern  garb  of 
khaki.  Their  excuse  for  not  being  in  the  game  is  that 
they  are  too  old  or  that  they  are  women.  For  now 
the  war  has  sucked  Into  its  vortex  all  who  are  strong 
enough  to  fight. 

A  traveller  might  be  a  spy;  hence  all  this  red  tape 
for  the  many  to  catch  the  one  in  its  mesh.  Even  this 
red  tape  seems  now  to  have  become  normal.  War  Is 
normal.  It  would  seem  strange  to  cross  the  Channel 
in  a  time  of  peace;  the  harbour  would  not  look  like 
itself  with  civilians  not  having  to  show  their  passports, 
and  without  the  white  hospital  ships,  and  the  white- 
bearded  landing-officer  at  the  foot  of  the  gangway,  and 
the  board  held  up  with  lists  of  names  of  officers  who 
have  telegrams  waiting  for  them. 

For  the  civilians  a  yellow  card  of  disembarkation 
and  for  the  military  a  white  card.  The  officers  and 
soldiers  walk  off  at  once  and  the  queue  of  civilians 
waits.  One  civilian  with  a  white  card,  who  belongs 
to  no  regiment,  who  is  not  even  a  chaplain  or  a  nurse, 
puzzles  the  landing-officer  for  a  moment.  But  there  Is 
something  to  go  with  It  —  a  correspondent's  licence 
and  a  letter  from  a  general  who  looks  after  such 
things.  They  show  that  you  "belong";  and  If  you 
don't  belong  on  the  road  of  war  you  will  not  get  far. 
As  well  try  to  walk  past  the  doorman  and  take  a  seat 
in  the  United  States  Senate  chamber  during  a  ses- 
sion. 

Most  precious  that  magical  piece  of  paper.  I  hap- 
pen to  be  the  only  American  with  one,  unless  he  is  in 
the  fighting  line  —  which  Is  one  sure  way  to  get  to  the 
front.  The  price  of  all  the  opera  boxes  at  the  Metro- 
politan will  not  buy  It;  and  It  is  the  passport  to  the  wel- 
coming smile  from  an  army  chauffeur  whom  I  almost 


A  ROAD  OF  WAR  I  KNOW         205 

regard  as  my  own.  But  Its  real  value  appears  at  the 
outskirts  of  the  city.  There  the  dead  line  is  drawn; 
there  the  sheep  are  finally  separated  from  the  goats  by 
a  French  sentry  guarding  the  winding  passageway  be- 
tween some  carts,  which  have  been  in  the  same  place 
In  the  road  for  months. 

The  car  spins  over  the  broad,  hard  French  road.  In 
a  land  where  for  many  miles  you  see  no  signs  of  war, 
until  it  turns  into  the  grounds  of  a  small  chateau 
opposite  a  village  church.  The  proprietor  of  a  dry- 
goods  store  in  a  neighbouring  city  spends  his  summers 
here;  but  this  summer  he  is  in  town,  because  the  press 
wanted  a  place  to  live  and  he  was  good  enough  to  rent 
us  his  country  place.  So  this  Is  home,  where  the  five 
British  and  one  American  correspondents  live  and 
mess.  The  expense  of  our  cars  costs  us  treble  all  the 
rest  of  our  expenses.  They  take  us  where  we  want  to 
go.  We  go  where  we  please,  but  we  may  not  write 
what  we  please.  We  see  something  like  a  thousand 
times  more  than  we  can  tell.  The  conditions  are  such 
as  to  make  a  news  reporter  throw  up  his  hands  and 
faint.  But  If  he  had  his  unbridled  way,  one  day  he 
might  feel  the  responsibility  for  the  loss  of  some  hun- 
dreds of  British  soldiers'  lives. 

"  It  may  be  all  right  for  war  correspondents,  but 
It  Is  a  devil  of  a  poor  place  for  a  newspaper  man,"  as 
one  editor  said.  Yet  it  is  the  only  place  where  you 
can  really  know  anything  about  the  war. 

We  become  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  the  great  or- 
ganisation that  encloses  us  in  its  regular  processes. 
No  one  in  his  heart  envies  the  press  officer,  who  holds 
the  blue  pencil  over  us.  He  has  to  "  take  It  both 
going  and  coming."  He  labours  on  our  behalf  and 
sometimes  we  labour  with  him.     The  staff  are  willing 


2o6  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

enough  to  let  us  watch  the  army  at  work,  but  they  do 
not  care  whether  or  not  we  write  about  their  war:  he 
wants  us  both  to  see  it  and  to  write  about  it.  He  tells 
us  some  big  piece  of  news,  and  then  says:  "  That  is 
for  yourselves;  you  may  not  write  it." 

People  do  not  want  to  read  about  the  correspond- 
ents, of  course.  They  want  to  read  what  the  corre- 
spondents have  to  tell  about  the  war;  but  the  con- 
ditions of  our  work  are  interesting  because  we  are  the 
link  between  the  army  and  the  reading  public.  All 
that  it  learns  from  actual  observation  of  what  the 
army  is  doing  comes  through  us. 

We  may  not  give  the  names  of  regiments  and  bri- 
gades until  weeks  after  a  fight,  because  that  will  tell 
the  enemy  what  troops  were  engaged;  we  may  not 
give  the  names  of  officers,  for  that  is  glorifying  one 
when  possibly  another  did  his  duty  equally  well.  It  is 
the  anonymity  of  the  struggle  that  makes  it  all  seem 
distant  and  unreal  —  till  the  telegram  comes  from  the 
War  Office  to  say  that  the  one  among  the  millions  who 
Is  dear  to  you  is  dead  or  wounded.  Otherwise,  it  is  a 
torment  of  unidentified  elements  behind  a  curtain, 
which  is  parted  for  an  announcement  of  a  gain  or  a 
loss,  or  to  give  out  a  list  of  the  fallen. 

The  world  wants  to  read  that  Peter  Smith  led  the 
King's  Own  Particular  Fusiliers  in  a  charge.  It  may 
not  know  Peter  Smith,  but  his  name  and  that  of  his 
regiment  make  the  information  seem  definite.  The 
statement  that  a  well-known  millionaire  yesterday 
gave  a  million  dollars  to  charit}',  or  that  a  man  in  a 
checked  suit  swam  from  the  Battery  to  Coney  Island, 
is  not  convincing;  nor  is  the  fact  that  one  private  un- 
named held  back  the  Germans  with  bombs  in  the  trav- 
erse of  a  trench  for  hours  until  help  came.     We  at 


A  ROAD  OF  WAR  I  KNOW         107 

the  front,  however,  do  know  the  names;  we  meet  the 
officers  and  men.  Ours  is  the  intimacy  which  we  may 
not  interpret  except  in  general  terms. 

Every  article,  every  despatch,  every  letter,  passes 
through  the  censor's  hand.  But  we  are  never  told 
what  to  write.  The  liberty  of  the  press  is  too  old  an 
institution  in  England  for  that.  Always  we  may  learn 
why  an  excision  is  made.  The  purpose  is  to  keep  in- 
formation from  the  enemy.  It  is  not  like  fighting 
Boers  or  Filipinos,  this  war  of  walls  of  men  who  can 
turn  the  smallest  bit  of  information  to  advantage. 

Intelligence  officers  speak  of  their  work  as  piecing 
together  the  parts  of  a  jig-saw  puzzle.  What  seems 
a  most  innocent  fact  by  itself  may  furnish  the  bit  which 
gives  the  figure  in  the  picture  its  face.  It  does  not 
follow  because  you  are  an  officer  that  you  know  what 
may  and  what  may  not  be  of  service  to  the  enemy. 

A  former  British  officer  who  had  become  a  well- 
known  military  critic,  in  an  account  of  a  visit  to  the 
front  mentioned  having  seen  a  battle  from  a  certain 
church  tower.  Publication  of  the  account  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  tornado  of  shell-fire  that  killed  and 
wounded  many  British  soldiers.  Only  a  staff  special- 
ist, trained  in  intelligence  work  and  in  constant  touch 
with  the  intelligence  department,  can  be  a  safe  censor. 
At  the  same  time,  he  is  the  best  friend  of  the  corre- 
spondent. He  knows  what  is  harmless  and  what  may 
not  be  allowed.  He  wants  the  press  to  have  as  much 
as  possible.  For  the  more  the  public  knows  about  its 
soldiers,  the  better  the  morale  of  the  people,  which 
reflects  itself  in  the  morale  of  the  army. 

The  published  casualty  lists  giving  the  names  of 
officers  and  men  and  their  battalions  is  a  means  of 
causing  casualties.     From  a  prisoner  taken  the  enemy 


2o8    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

learns  what  battalions  were  present  at  a  given  fight; 
he  adds  up  the  numbers  reported  killed  and  wounded 
and  ascertains  what  the  fight  cost  the  enemy  and,  in 
turn,  the  effect  of  the  fire  from  his  side.  But  the  Brit- 
ish public  demanded  to  see  the  casualty  lists  and 
the  British  press  were  allowed  to  gratify  the  desire. 
They  appeared  in  the  newspapers,  of  course,  days 
after  the  nearest  relative  of  the  dead  or  wounded  man 
had  received  official  notification  from  the  War  Office. 

Officers'  letters  from  the  front,  so  freely  published 
earlier  in  the  war,  amazed  experienced  correspondents 
by  their  unconscious  indiscretions.  The  line  officer 
who  had  been  in  a  fight  told  all  that  he  saw.  Twenty 
officers  doing  the  same  along  a  stretch  of  front  and  the 
jig-saw  experts,  plus  what  information  they  had  from 
spies,  were  in  clover.  Editors  said:  "  But  these  men 
are  officers.  They  ought  to  know  when  they  are  im- 
parting m.Ilitary  secrets." 

Alas,  they  do  not  know  I  It  is  not  to  be  expected 
that  they  should.  Their  business  is  to  fight;  the  busi- 
ness of  other  experts  is  to  safeguard  information. 
For  a  long  time  the  British  army  kept  correspondents 
from  the  front  on  the  principle  that  the  business  of  a 
correspondent  must  be  to  tell  what  ought  not  to  be 
told.  Yet  they  were  to  learn  that  the  accredited  cor- 
respondent, an  expert  at  his  profession,  working  in 
harmony  with  the  experts  of  the  staff,  let  no  military 
secrets  pass. 

At  our  mess  we  get  the  Berlin  dailies  promptly. 
Soon  after  the  Germans  are  reading  the  war  corre- 
spondence from  their  own  front  we  are  reading  it,  and 
laughing  at  jokes  in  their  comic  papers  and  at  cartoons 
which  exhibit  John  Bull  as  a  stricken  old  ogre  and 
Britannia  who  Rules  the  Waves  with  the  corners  of 


A  ROAD  OF  WAR  I  KNOW         209 

her  mouth  drawn  down  to  the  bottom  of  her  chin,  as 
she  sees  the  havoc  that  von  Tirpitz  is  making  with  sub- 
marines which  do  not  stop  us  from  receiving  our  Ger- 
man jokes  regularly  across  the  Channel. 

Doubtless  the  German  messes  get  their  Punch  and 
the  London  illustrated  weeklies  regularly.  In  the 
time  that  it  took  the  English  daily  with  the  account  of 
the  action  seen  from  the  church  tower  to  reach  Berlin 
and  the  news  to  be  wired  to  the  front,  the  German 
guns  made  use  of  the  information.  Neutral  Httle  Hol- 
land is  the  telltale  of  both  sides;  the  ally  and  the  en- 
emy of  all  intelligence  corps.  Scores  of  experts  in 
jig-saw  puzzles  on  both  sides  seize  every  scrap  of 
information  and  piece  them  together.  Each  time  that 
one  gets  a  bit  from  a  newspaper  he  is  for  a  sharper 
press  censorship  on  his  side  and  a  more  liberal  one 
on  the  other. 

We  six  correspondents  have  our  insignia,  as  must 
every  one  who  is  free  to  move  along  the  lines.  By  a 
glance  you  may  tell  every^body's  branch  and  rank  in 
that  complicated  and  disciplined  world,  where  no  man 
acts  for  himself,  but  always  on  some  one  else's  orders. 

"  Don't  you  know  who  they  are?  They  are  the 
correspondents,"  I  heard  a  soldier  say.  *'  D.  Chron., 
that's  the  Daily  Chronicle;  M.  Post,  that's  the  Morn- 
ing Post;  D.  Mail,  that's  the  Daily  Mail.  There's 
one  with  U.  S.  A.     What  paper  is  that?  " 

"  It  ain't  a  paper,"  said  another.  "  It's  the  States 
—  he's  a  Yank!"  The  War  Office  put  it  on  the 
American  cousin's  arm,  and  wherever  it  goes  it  seems 
welcome.  It  may  puzzle  the  gunners  when  the  Amer- 
ican says,  *'  That  was  a  peach  of  a  shot,  right  across 
the  pan!  "  or  the  infantry  when  he  says,  "  It  cuts  no 
ice  I  "  and  there  is  no  ice  visible  in  Flanders;  he  speaks 


210  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

about  typhoid  to  the  medical  corps  which  calls  it 
enteric;  and  "  fly-swatting  "  is  a  new  word  to  the  sani- 
tarians, who  are  none  the  less  busily  engaged  in  that 
noble  art.  Lessons  for  the  British  in  the  "  American 
language"  while  you  wait!  In  return,  the  American 
is  learning  what  a  "  stout-hearted  thruster  "  and  other 
phrases  mean  in  the  Simon-pure  English. 

The  correspondents  are  the  spoiled  spectators  of  the 
army's  work;  the  itinerants  of  the  road  of  war.  No- 
body sees  so  much  as  we,  because  we  have  nothing  to 
do  but  to  see.  An  officer  looking  at  the  towers  of 
Ypres  cathedral,  a  mile  away  from  the  trench  where 
he  was,  said:  *'  No,  I've  never  been  in  Ypres.  Our 
regiment  has  not  been  stationed  in  that  part  of  the 
line." 

We  have  sampled  all  the  trenches;  we  have  studied 
the  ruins  of  Ypres  with  an  archaeologist's  eye;  we 
know  the  names  of  the  estaminets  of  the  villages,  from 
"  The  Good  Farmer  "  to  "  The  Harvester's  Rest  " 
and  "  The  Good  Cousin,"  not  to  mention  "  The  Omni- 
bus Stop  "  on  the  Cassell  Hill.  Madame  who  keeps 
the  hotel  in  the  G.  H.  Q.  town  knows  me  so  well  that 
we  wave  hands  to  each  other  as  I  pass  the  door;  and 
the  clerks  in  a  certain  shop  have  learned  that  the 
American  likes  his  fruit  raw,  instead  of  stewed  in  the 
English  fashion,  and  plenty  of  it,  especially  if  it  comes 
from  the  South  out  of  season,  as  it  does  from  Florida 
or  California  to  pampered  human  beings  at  home, 
who,  if  they  could  see  as  much  of  this  war  as  I  have 
seen,  would  appreciate  what  a  fortunate  lot  they  are 
to  have  not  a  ribbon  of  salt  water  but  a  broad  sea  full 
of  it,  and  the  British  navy,  too,  between  them  and  the 
thing  on  the  other  side  of  the  zone  of  death. 

G.    H.    Q.    means    General    Headquarters,    and 


A  ROAD  OF  WAR  I  KNOW  211 

B.  E.  F.,  which  shows  the  way  for  your  letters  from 
England,  means  British  Expeditionary  Force.  The 
high  leading,  the  brains,  of  the  army  are  theoretically 
at  G.  H.  Q.  That  word  theoretically  is  used  ad- 
visedly in  view  of  opinion  at  other  points.  An  officer 
sent  from  G.  H.  Q.  to  command  a  brigade  had  not 
been  long  out  before  he  began  to  talk  about  those  con- 
founded one-thing-and-another  fellows  at  G.  H.  Q. 
When  he  was  at  G.  H.  Q.,  he  used  to  talk  about  those 
confounded  one-thing-and-another  fellows  who  com- 
manded corps,  divisions,  and  brigades  at  the  front. 
The  philosophers  of  G.  H.  Q.  smiled  and  the  phi- 
losophers of  the  army  smiled  —  it  was  the  old  story 
of  the  staff  and  the  line;  of  the  main  office  and  the 
branches.  But  the  line  did  the  most  smiling  to  see 
the  new  brigadier  getting  a  taste  of  his  own  medicine. 

G.  H.  Q.  directs  the  whole;  here  every  department 
of  all  that  vast  concern  which  supplies  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  men  and  prepares  for  the  other  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  is  focussed.  The  symbol  of  its 
authority  is  a  red  band  around  the  cap,  which  means 
that  you  are  a  staff  officer.  No  war  at  G.  H.  Q.,  only 
the  driving  force  of  war.  It  seems  as  far  removed 
from  the  front  as  the  New  York  office  of  a  string  of 
manufacturing  plants. 

If  one  follows  a  red-banded  cap  into  a  door  he 
sees  other  officers  and  clerks  and  typewriters,  and  a 
sign  which  says  that  a  department  chief  has  his  desk 
in  the  drawing-room  of  a  private  house  —  where  he 
has  had  it  for  months.  Go  to  one  mess  and  you  will 
hear  talk  about  garbage  pails  and  how  to  kill  flies;  to 
another,  about  hospitals  and  clearing  stations  for  the 
wounded;  to  another,  about  barbed  wire,  sandbags, 
spades,  timber,  and  galvanised  iron  —  the  engineers ; 


212    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  another,  about  guns,  shells,  rifles,  bullets,  mortars, 
bombs,  bayonets,  and  high  explosives  —  the  ordnance; 
to  another,  about  jam,  bread,  bacon,  uniforms,  iron 
rations,  socks,  underclothes,  canned  goods,  fresh  beef, 
and  motor  trucks  —  the  Army  Service  Corps;  to  an- 
other, about  attacks,  counter-attacks,  and  salients,  and 
about  what  the  others  are  doing  and  will  have  to  do  — 
the  operations. 

The  chief  of  stajff  drives  the  eight-horse  team.  He 
works  sixteen  hours  a  day.  So  do  most  of  the  others. 
This  is  how  you  prove  to  the  line  that  you  have  a 
right  to  be  at  G.  H.  Q.  When  you  get  to  know 
G.  H.  Q.  it  seems  like  any  other  business  institution. 
Many  are  there  who  don't  want  to  be  there;  but  they 
have  been  found  out.  They  are  specialists,  who  know 
how  to  do  one  thing  particularly  well  and  are  kept 
doing  it.  No  use  of  growling  that  you  would  like  a 
"  fighting  job." 

G.  H.  Q.  is  the  main  station  on  the  road  of  war, 
which  hears  the  sound  of  the  guns  faintly.  Beyond 
is  the  region  of  all  the  activities  that  it  commands, 
up  to  the  trenches,  where  all  roads  end  and  all  efforts 
consummate.  One  has  seen  dreary,  flat  lands  of  mud 
and  leafless  trees  become  fair  with  the  spring,  the 
growing  harvests  reaped,  and  the  leaves  begin  to  fall. 
Always  the  factory  of  war  was  in  the  same  place; 
the  soldiers  billeted  in  the  same  villages;  the  puffs 
of  shrapnel  smoke  over  the  same  belt  of  landscape; 
the  ruins  of  the  same  villages  being  pounded  by  high 
explosives.  Always  the  sound  of  guns;  always  the 
wastage  of  life,  as  passing  ambulances,  the  curtains 
drawn,  speed  by,  their  part  swiftly  and  covertly  done. 
The  enormity  of  the  thing  holds  the  imagination;  its 
sure  and  orderly  processes  of  an  organised  civilisation 


A  ROAD  OF  WAR  I  KNOW  213 

working  at  destruction  win  the  admiration.  There  Is 
a  thrill  In  the  courage  and  sacrifice  and  the  drilled 
readiness  of  response  to  orders. 

One  Is  under  varying  spells.  To-day  he  seems  In 
the  midst  of  a  fantastic  world,  whose  horror  makes 
it  Impossible  of  realisation.  To-morrow,  as  his  car 
takes  him  along  a  pleasant  by-road  among  wheat- 
fields  where  peasants  are  working  and  no  soldier  Is 
In  sight,  It  Is  a  world  of  peace,  and  one  thinks  that 
he  has  mistaken  the  roar  of  a  train  for  the  distant 
roar  of  gun-fire.  Again,  It  seems  the  most  real  of 
worlds,  an  exclusive  man's  world,  where  nothing 
counts  but  organised  material  force,  and  all  those 
cleanly,  well-behaved  men  in  khaki  are  a  part  of  the 
permanent  population. 

One  sees  the  war  as  a  colossal  dynamo,  where  force 
is  perpetual  hke  the  energy  of  the  sun.  The  war  is 
going  on  forever.  The  reaper  cuts  the  harvest,  but 
another  harvest  comes.  War  feeds  on  Itself,  renews 
Itself.  Live  men  replace  the  dead.  There  seems  no 
end  to  supplies  of  men.  The  pounding  of  the  guns, 
like  the  roar  of  Niagara,  becomes  eternal.  Nothing 
can  stop  It. 


XV 


TRENCHES    IN    WINTER 

A  trench  must  be  "experienced" — Appearance  of  the  trench  —  A 
trench  periscope — "One  hundred  and  fifty  yards  away" — Im- 
agination at  work  —  The  dead  wall  opposite  —  Trench  realism 

—  A  genuine  officer  —  A  night  excursion  —  General  Mud  —  The 
German  flares  —  A  house  in  a  trench  wall  —  Oozing  walls  — 
"A  ditch  in  the  mud" — Discovered  by  a  searchlight  —  Suspense 

—  Arrival  of  supplies  —  The  relief •  and  cleanliness. 

The  difference  between  trench  warfare  in  winter  and 
in  summer  is  that  between  sleeping  on  the  lawn  in 
March  and  in  July.  It  was  in  the  mud  and  winds  of 
March  that  I  first  saw  the  British  front.  The  winds 
were  much  like  the  seasonal  winds  at  home;  but  the 
Flanders  mud  is  lilce  no  other  mud,  in  the  judgment  of 
the  British  soldier.  It  is  mixed  with  glue.  When  I 
returned  to  the  front  in  June  for  a  longer  stay,  the 
mud  had  become  clouds  of  dust  that  trailed  behind 
the  automobile. 

In  March  my  eagerness  to  see  a  trench  was  that 
of  one  from  the  Western  prairies  to  get  his  first 
glimpse  of  the  ocean.  Once  I  might  go  into  a  trench 
as  often  as  I  pleased  I  became  "  fed  up "  with 
trenches,  as  the  British  say.  They  did  not  mean  much 
more  than  an  alley  or  a  railroad  cut.  One  came  to 
think  of  the  average  peaceful  trench  as  a  ditch  where 
some  men  were  eating  marmalade  and  bully  beef  and 
looking  across  a  field  at  some  more  men  who  were 
eating  sausage  and  "  K.  K."  bread,  each  party  taking 
care  that  the  other  did  not  see  him. 

Writers  have  served  us  trenches  in  every  possible 
214 


TRENCHES  IN  WINTER  215 

literary  style  that  censorship  will  permit.  Whoever 
"  tours  "  one  is  convinced  that  none  of  the  descrip- 
tions published  heretofore  has  been  adequate  and 
writes  one  of  his  own  which  will  be  final.  All  agree 
that  it  is  not  like  what  they  thought  it  was.  But,  de- 
spite all  the  descriptions,  the  public  still  fails  to  vis- 
ualise a  trench.  You  do  not  see  a  trench  with  your 
eyes  so  much  as  with  your  mind  and  imagination. 
That  long  line  where  all  the  powers  of  destruction 
within  man's  command  are  in  deadlock  has  become  a 
symbol  for  something  which  cannot  be  expressed  by 
words.  No  one  has  yet  really  described  a  shell-burst, 
or  a  flash  of  lightning,  or  Niagara  Falls;  and  no 
one  will  ever  describe  a  trench.  He  cannot  put  any 
one  else  there.     He  can  only  be  there  himself. 

The  first  time  that  I  looked  over  a  British  parapet 
was  in  the  edge  of  a  wood.  Board  walks  ran  across 
the  spongy  earth  here  and  there;  the  doors  of  little 
shanties  with  earth  roofs  opened  on  to  those  streets, 
which  were  called  Piccadilly  and  the  Strand.  I  was 
reminded  of  a  pleasant  prospector's  camp  in  Alaska. 
Only  everybody  was  in  uniform  and  occasionally  some- 
thing whished  through  the  branches  of  the  trees. 
One  looked  up  to  see  what  it  was  and  where  it  was 
going,  this  stray  bullet,  without  being  any  wiser. 

We  passed  along  one  of  the  walks  until  we  came 
to  a  wall  of  sandbags  —  simply  white  bags  about 
three-quarters  of  the  size  of  an  ordinary  pillowslip, 
filled  with  earth  and  laid  one  on  top  of  another  like 
bags  of  grain.  You  stood  beside  a  man  who  had  a 
rifle  laid  across  the  top  of  the  pile.  Of  course,  you 
did  not  wear  a  white  hat  or  wave  a  handkerchief. 
One  does  not  do  that  when  he  plays  hide-and-seek. 

Or,  if  you  preferred,  you  might  look  into  a  chip  of 


2i6    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

glass,  with  your  head  wholly  screened  by  the  wall  of 
sandbags,  which  got  a  reflection  from  another  chip  of 
glass  above  the  parapet.  This  is  the  trench  peri- 
scope; the  principle  of  all  of  them  is  the  same.  They 
have  no  more  variety  than  the  fashions  in  knives, 
forks  and  spoons  on  the  dinner  table. 

One  hundred  and  fifty  yards  away  across  a  dead 
field  was  another  wall  of  sandbags.  The  distance  is 
important.  It  is  always  stated  in  all  descriptions. 
One  hundred  and  fifty  yards  is  not  much.  Only  when 
you  get  within  forty  or  fifty  yards  have  you  something 
to  brag  about.  Yet  three  hundred  yards  may  be 
more  dangerous  than  fifteen,  if  an  artillery  "  hate  " 
is  on. 

Look  for  an  hour  and  all  you  see  Is  the  wall  of 
sandbags.  Not  even  a  rabbit  runs  across  that  dead 
space.  The  situation  gets  its  power  of  suggestion 
from  the  fact  that  there  are  Germans  behind  the  other 
wall  —  real,  live  Germans.  They  are  trying  to  kill 
the  British  on  our  side  and  we  are  trying  to  kill  them; 
and  they  are  as  coyly  unaccommodating  about  putting 
up  their  heads  as  we  are.  The  emotion  of  the  situa- 
tion is  in  the  fact  that  a  sharpshooter  might  send  a 
shot  at  your  cap ;  he  might  smash  a  periscope ;  a  shell 
might  come.  A  rifle  cracks  —  that  is  all.  Nearly 
every  one  has  heard  the  sound,  which  is  no  different 
at  the  front  than  elsewhere.  And  the  sound  is  the 
only  information  you  get.  It  is  not  so  interesting  as 
shooting  at  a  deer,  for  you  can  tell  whether  you  hit 
him  or  not.  The  man  who  fires  from  a  trench  is  not 
even  certain  whether  he  saw  a  German  or  not.  He 
shot  at  some  shadow  or  object  along  the  crest  which 
might  have  been  a  German  head. 

Thus,  one  must  take  the  word  of  those  present  that 


TRENCHES  IN  WINTER  217 

there  is  any  more  life  behind  than  in  front  of  the 
sandbags.  However,  if  you  are  sceptical  you  may 
have  conviction  by  starting  to  crawl  over  the  top  of 
the  British  parapet.  After  dark  the  soldiers  will  slip 
over  and  bring  your  body  back.  It  is  this  something 
you  do  not  see,  this  something  the  imagination  vis- 
ualises, that  convinces  you  that  you  ought  to  be  con- 
siderate enough  of  posterity  to  write  the  real  descrip- 
tion of  a  trench.  Look  for  an  hour  at  that  wall  of 
sandbags  and  your  imagination  sees  more  and  more, 
while  your  eye  sees  only  sandbags.  What  does  this 
war  mean  to  you  ?  There  it  is ;  only  you  can  describe 
what  this  war  means  to  you. 

Many  a  soldier  who  has  spent  months  In  trenches 
has  not  seen  a  German.  I  boast  that  I  have  seen  real 
Germans  through  my  glasses.  They  were  walking 
along  a  road  back  of  their  trenches.  It  was  most 
fascinating.  All  the  Germans  I  had  ever  seen  in  Ger- 
many were  not  half  so  interesting.  I  strained  my 
eyes  watching  those  wonderful  beings  as  I  might  at 
the  first  visiting  party  from  Mars  to  earth.  There 
must  have  been  at  least  ten  out  of  the  Kaiser's  mil- 
lions. 

In  summer  that  wood  had  become  a  sylvan  bower, 
or  a  pastoral  paradise,  or  a  leafy  nook,  as  you  please. 
The  sun  played  through  the  branches  In  a  patchwork; 
flowers  bloomed  on  the  dirt  roofs  of  the  shanties, 
and  a  swallow  had  a  nest  —  famous  swallow !  —  on 
one  of  the  parapets.  True,  it  was  not  on  the  front 
parapet;  it  was  on  the  reserve.  The  swallow  knew 
what  he  was  about.  He  was  taking  a  reasonable 
amount  of  risk  and  playing  reasonably  secure  to  get 
a  front  seat,  according  to  the  ethics  of  the  war  corre- 
spondent.    The  two  walls  of  sandbags  were  in  the 


2i8  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

same  place  that  they  had  been  six  months  previously. 
A  Httle  patching  had  been  done  after  some  shells  had 
hit  the  mark,  though  not  many  had  come. 

For  this  was  a  quiet  corner.  Neither  side  was  In- 
terested in  stirring  up  the  hornets'  nest.  If  a  mem- 
ber of  Parliament  wished  to  see  what  trench  life  was 
like  he  was  brought  here,  because  It  was  one  of  the 
safest  places  for  a  few  minutes'  look  at  the  sandbags 
which  Mr.  Atkins  stared  at  week  In  and  week  out. 
Some  Conservatives,  however,  in  the  case  of  Radical 
members,  would  have  chosen  a  different  kind  of  trench 
to  show;  for  example,  that  one  which  was  suggested 
to  me  by  the  staff  officer  with  the  twinkle  in  his  eye 
in  my  best  day  at  the  front. 

In  want  of  an  army  pass  to  the  front  In  order  to 
write  your  own  description,  then,  put  up  a  wall  of 
sandbags  In  a  vacant  lot  and  another  one  hundred 
and  fifty  yards  away  and  fire  a  rifle  occasionally  from 
your  wall  at  the  head  of  a  man  on  the  opposite  side, 
who  will  shoot  at  yours  —  and  there  you  are.  If  you 
prefer  the  realistic  to  the  romantic  school  and  wish 
to  appreciate  the  nature  of  trench  hfe  In  winter,  find 
a  piece  of  wet,  flat  country,  dig  a  ditch  seven  or  eight 
feet  deep  and  stand  In  icy  water  looking  across  at 
another  ditch,  and  sleep  In  a  cellar  that  you  have  dug 
in  the  wall,  and  you  are  near  understanding  what  Mr. 
Atkins  has  been  doing  for  his  country.  The  ditch 
should  be  cut  zigzag  in  and  out,  like  the  lines  binding 
the  squares  of  a  checker-board;  that  makes  more  work 
and  localises  the  burst  of  shells. 

Of  course,  the  moist  walls  will  be  continually  fall- 
ing in  and  require  mending  in  a  drenching,  freezing 
rain  of  the  kind  that  the  Lord  visits  on  all  who 
wage  war  underground  In  Flanders.     Incidentally,  you 


TRENCHES  IN  WINTER  219 

must  look  after  the  pumps,  lest  the  water  rise  to  your 
neck.  For  all  the  while  you  are  fighting  Flanders  as 
well  as  the  Germans. 

To  carry  realism  to  the  limit  of  the  Grand  Guignol 
school,  then,  arrange  some  bags  of  bullets  with  dyna- 
mite charges  on  a  wire,  which  will  do  for  shrapnel; 
plant  some  dynamite  in  the  parapet,  which  will  do 
for  high  explosive  shells  that  burst  on  contact;  and 
sink  heavier  charges  of  dynamite  under  your  feet, 
which  will  do  for  mines  —  and  set  them  off,  while  you 
engage  some  one  to  toss  grenades  and  bombs  at  you. 

Though  scores  of  officers'  letters  had  given  their 
account  of  trench  life  with  the  vividness  of  personal 
experience,  I  must  mention  my  first  trench  in  Flanders 
in  winter  when,  with  other  correspondents,  I  saw  the 
real  thing  under  the  guidance  of  the  commanding  offi- 
cer of  that  particular  section,  a  slight,  wiry  man  who 
wore  the  ribbon  of  the  Victoria  Cross,  won  in  another 
war  for  helping  to  "  save  the  guns."  He  made  see- 
ing trenches  in  the  mud  seem  a  pleasure  trip.  He 
was  the  kind  who  would  walk  up  to  his  ball  as  if  he 
knew  how  to  play  golf,  send  out  a  clean,  fair,  long 
drive,  and  then  use  his  iron  as  if  he  knew  how  to  use 
an  iron,  without  talking  about  his  game  on  the  way 
around  or  when  he  returned  to  the  club-house. 

Men  could  go  into  danger  behind  him  without  real- 
ising that  they  were  in  danger;  they  could  share  hard- 
ship without  realising  that  there  were  any  hardships. 
Such  as  he  put  faith  and  backbone  into  soldiers  by 
their  very  manner;  and  if  their  professional  training 
equal  their  talents,  when  war  comes  they  win  victories. 

Of  course,  we  had  rubber  boots,  electric  torches, 
and  wore  British  warms,  those  short,  thick  coats  which 
accrue  a  modicum  of  mud  for  you  to  carry  besides 


220  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

what  you  are  carrying  on  your  boots.  We  walked 
along  a  hard  road  in  the  dark  toward  an  aurora 
borealis  of  German  flares,  which  popped  into  the  sky 
like  Roman  candles  and  burst  in  circles  of  light. 
They  seemed  to  be  saying:  "Come  on!  Try  to 
crawl  up  on  us  and  play  us  a  trick  and  our  eyes  will 
find  you  and  our  marksmen  will  stop  you.  Come  on ! 
We  make  the  night  into  day,  and  watching  never 
ceases  from  our  parapet." 

Occasional  rifle-shots  and  a  machine  gun's  ter-rut 
were  audible  from  the  direction  of  the  jumping  red 
glare,  which  stretched  right  and  left  as  far  as  the  eye 
could  see.  We  broke  off  the  road  into  a  morass  of 
mud,  as  one  might  cross  lots  when  he  had  lost  his 
way,  and  plunged  on  till  the  commanding  officer  said, 
*'  We  go  in  here !  "  and  we  descended  into  a  black 
chasm  in  the  earth.  The  wonder  was  that  any  ditch 
could  be  cut  in  soil  which  the  rains  had  turned  into 
syrup.  Mud  oozed  from  the  sandbags,  through  the 
wire  netting,  and  between  the  wood  supports  which 
held  the  walls  in  place.  It  was  just  as  bad  over  in 
the  German  trenches.  General  Mud  laid  siege  to 
both  armies.  The  field  of  battle  where  he  gathered 
his  gay  knights  was  a  slough.  His  tug  of  war  was 
strife  against  landslides,  rheumatism,  pneumonia,  and 
frozen  feet. 

The  soldier  tries  to  kill  his  adversary;  he  tries  to 
prevent  his  adversary  from  killing  him.  He  is  as 
busy  in  safeguarding  as  in  taking  life.  While  he 
breathes,  thinks,  fights  mud,  he  blesses  as  well  as 
curses  mud.  Mother  Earth  is  still  unconquerable. 
In  her  bosom  man  still  finds  security;  such  security 
that  "  dug  in  "  he  can  defy  at  a  hundred  yards'  dis- 
tance rifles  that  carry  death  three  thousand  yards. 


TRENCHES  IN  WINTER  221 

She  It  is  that  has  made  the  deadlock  of  the  trenches 
and  plastered  their  occupants  with  her  miry  hands. 

The  C.  O.  lifted  a  curtain  of  bagging  as  you  might 
lift  a  hanging  over  an  alcove  bookcase,  and  a  young 
officer,  rising  from  his  blankets  in  his  house  in  the 
trench-wall  to  a  stooping  posture,  said  that  all  was 
quiet.  His  uniform  seemed  fleckless.  Was  it  possi- 
ble that  he  wore  some  kind  of  cloth  which  shed  mud 
spatters?     He  was  another  of  the  type  of  Captain 

P ,  my  host  at  Neuve  Chapelle ;  a  type  formed  on 

the  type  of  seniors  such  as  his  C.  O.  Unanalysable 
this  quality,  but  there  is  something  distinguished  about 
it  and  delightfully  appealing.  A  man  who  can  be  the 
same  in  a  trench  in  Flanders  in  midwinter  as  in  a 
drawing-room  has  my  admiration.  They  never  lose 
their  manner,  these  English  officers.  They  carry  it 
into  the  charge  and  back  in  the  ambulance  with  them 
to  England,  where  they  wish  nothing  so  much  as  that 
their  friends  will  "  cut  out  the  hero  stuff,"  as  our  own 
officers  say. 

In  other  dank  cellars  soldiers  who  were  off  guard 
were  lying  or  sitting.  The  radiance  of  the  flares 
lighted  the  profiles  of  those  on  guard,  whose  faces 
were  half  hidden  by  coat  collars  or  ear-flaps  —  imper- 
turbable, silent,  marooned  and  marooning,  watchful 
and  fearless.  The  thing  had  to  be  done  and  they 
were  doing  it;  and  they  were  going  to  keep  on  doing 
it. 

There  was  nothing  dry  in  that  trench,  unless  it  was 
the  bowl  of  a  man's  pipe.  There  were  not  even  any 
braziers.  In  your  nostrils  was  the  odour  of  the  soil 
of  Flanders,  cultivated  by  many  generations  through 
many  wars.  As  night  wore  on  the  sky  was  bright- 
ened by  cold,  winter  stars  and  their  soft  light  became 


222    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

noticeable  between  the  disagreeable  flashes  of  the 
flares. 

We  walked  on  and  on.  It  was  like  walking  In  a 
winding  ditch;  that  was  all.  The  same  kind  of  walls 
at  every  turn;  the  same  kind  of  dim  figures  in  satu- 
rated, heavy  army  overcoats.  Slipping  off  the  board 
walk  into  the  ooze,  one  was  thrown  against  the  mud 
wall  as  his  foot  sank.  Then  he  held  fast  to  his  boot 
straps  lest  the  boot  remain  in  the  mud  while  his  foot 
came  out.  Only  the  C.  O.  never  slipped.  He  knew 
how  to  tour  trenches.  The  others  were  as  clumsy 
beside  him  as  if  they  were  trying  to  walk  a  tight 
rope. 

"  Good  night!  "  he  said  to  each  group  of  men  as 
he  passed,  with  the  cheer  of  one  who  brings  a  con- 
fident spirit  to  vigils  in  the  mud  and  with  that  note 
of  affection  of  the  commander  who  has  learned  to 
love  his  men  by  the  token  of  ordeals  when  he  saw 
them  hold  fast  against  odds. 

"Good  night,  sir!"  they  answered;  and  in  their 
tone  was  something  which  you  liked  to  hear  —  a  finer 
tribute  to  the  C.  O.  than  medals  which  kings  can  be- 
stow. It  was  affection  and  trust.  They  were  ready 
to  follow  him,  for  they  knew  that  he  knew  how  to 
lead.  I  was  not  surprised  when  I  heard  of  his  pro- 
motion, later.  I  shall  not  be  surprised  when  I  hear 
of  it  again.  For  he  had  brain  and  heart  and  the 
gift  of  command. 

"  Shall  we  go  on  or  shall  we  go  back?  "  he  asked 
when  we  had  gone  about  a  mile.  "  Have  you  had 
enough?  " 

We  had,  without  a  dissenting  voice.  A  ditch  in  the 
mud  —  that  was  all,  no  matter  how  much  farther  we 
went.     So  we  passed  out  of  the  trench  into  a  soapy, 


TRENCHES  IN  WINTER  223 

slippery  mud  which  had  been  ploughed  ground  in  the 
autumn,  now  become  lathery  with  the  beat  of  men's 
steps.  Our  party  became  separated,  when  some 
foundered  and  tried  to  hoist  themselves  with  both 
boot  straps  at  once.  The  C.  O.  called  out  in  order  to 
locate  us  in  the  darkness,  and  the  voice  of  an  officer 
in  the  trenches  cut  in :  "  Keep  still !  The  Germans 
are  only  a  hundred  yards  away!  " 

"  Sorry!  "  whispered  the  C.  O.  "  I  ought  to  have 
known  better." 

Then  one  of  the  German  searchlights  that  had  been 
swinging  its  stream  of  light  across  the  paths  of  the 
flares  lay  its  fierce,  comet  eye  on  us,  glistening  on  the 
froth-streaked  mud  and  showing  each  mud-splashed 
figure  in  heavy^  coat  in  weird  silhouette. 

"Stand  still!" 

That  is  the  order  whenever  searchlights  come  spy- 
ing in  your  direction.  So  we  stood  still  in  the  mud, 
looking  at  one  another  and  wondering.  It  was  the 
one  tense  second  of  the  night,  which  lifted  our 
thoughts  out  of  the  mud  with  the  elation  of  risk. 
That  searchlight  was  the  eye  of  death  looking  for  a 
target.  With  the  first  crack  of  a  bullet  we  should 
have  known  that  we  were  discovered  and  that  it  was 
no  longer  good  tactics  to  stand  still.  We  should  have 
dropped  on  all  fours  into  the  porridge.  The  search- 
light swept  on.  Perhaps  Hans  at  the  machine  gun 
was  nodding  or  perhaps  he  did  not  think  us  worth 
while.  Either  supposition  was  equally  agreeable  to 
us. 

We  kept  moving  our  mud-poulticed  feet  forward, 
with  the  flares  at  our  backs,  till  we  came  to  a  road 
where  we  saw  dimly  a  silent  company  of  soldiers 
drawn  up  and  behind  them  the  supplies  for  the  trench. 


224    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Through  the  mud  and  under  cover  of  darkness  every 
bit  of  barbed  wire,  every  board,  every  ounce  of  food, 
must  go  up  to  the  moles  in  the  ditch.  The  search- 
lights and  the  flares  and  the  machine  guns  waited  for 
the  relief.  They  must  be  fooled.  But  in  this  opera- 
tion most  of  the  ca^alties  in  the  average  trenches, 
both  British  and  German,  occurred.  Without  a 
chance  to  strike  back,  the  soldier  was  shot  at  by  an 
assassin  in  the  night. 

When  the  men  who  had  been  serving  their  turn  of 
duty  in  the  trenches  came  out,  a  magnet  drew  their 
weary  steps  —  cleanliness.  They  thought  of  nothing 
except  soap  and  water.  For  a  week  they  need  not 
fight  mud  or  Germans  or  parasites,  which,  like  Gen- 
eral Mud,  waged  war  against  both  British  and  Ger- 
mans. Standing  on  the  slats  of  the  concrete  floor 
of  a  factory,  they  peeled  off  the  filthy,  saturated  outer 
skin  of  clothing  with  its  hideous,  crawling  inhabitants 
and,  naked,  leapt  into  great,  steaming  vats,  where  they 
scrubbed  and  gurgled  and  gurgled  and  scrubbed. 
When  they  sprang  out  to  apply  the  towels,  they  were 
men  with  the  feel  of  new  bodies  in  another  world. 

Waiting  for  them  were  clean  clothes,  which  had 
been  boiled  and  disinfected;  and  waiting,  too,  was 
the  shelter  of  their  billets  in  the  houses  of  French 
towns  and  villages,  and  rest  and  food  and  food  and 
rest,  and  newspapers  and  tobacco  and  gossip  —  but 
chiefly  rest  and  the  joy  of  lethargy  as  tissue  was  re- 
built after  the  first  long  sleep,  often  twelve  hours  at 
a  stretch.  They  knew  all  the  sensations  of  physical 
man,  man  battling  with  nature,  in  contrasts  of  exhaus- 
tion and  danger  and  recuperation  and  security,  as  the 
pendulum  swung  slowly  back  from  fatigue  to  the  glow 
of  strength. 


TRENCHES  IN  WINTER  225 

Those  who  came  out  of  the  trenches  quite  "  done 
up,"  Colonel  Bate,  Irish  and  genial,  fatherly  and  not 
lean,  claimed  for  his  own.  After  the  washing  they  lay 
on  cots  under  a  glass  roof,  and  they  might  play  domi- 
noes and  read  the  papers  when  they  were  well  enough 
to  sit  up.  They  had  the  food  which  Colonel  Bate 
knew  was  good  for  them,  just  as  well  as  he  knew  what 
was  deadly  for  the  inhabitants  whom  they  brought  into 
that  isolated  room  which  every  man  must  pass  through 
before  he  was  admitted  to  the  full  radiance  of  the 
colonel's  curative  smile.  When  they  were  able  to  re- 
turn to  the  trenches,  each  was  written  down  as  one 
unit  more  in  the  colonel's  weekly  statistical  reports. 
In  summer  he  entertained  al  fresco  in  an  open  air 
camp. 


XVI 


IN   NEUVE   CHAPELLE 


British  advance  —  The  human  stone  wall  moves  —  Neuve  Chapelle 
"on  the  map" — The  travelled  British  army  —  A  demolished 
trench — Stray  bullets  —  The  intelligence  system  —  A  captured 
spy  —  Old  friends  —  Power  of  the  British  artillery  —  Front  line 
breastworks  —  Business-like  readiness  —  A  cosy  house  —  A  tick- 
lish walk — Glowing  braziers — "How  do  they  feel  in  the 
States?" — The  Rhine  or  Berlin?  —  The  passing  of  the  "  Soldiers 
Three" — The  modern  Tommy  —  Capturing  a  helmet. 

Typical  of  many  others,  this  quiet  village  In  a  flat 
country  of  rich  farming  land,  with  a  church,  a  school, 
a  post-office,  and  stores  where  the  farmers  could  buy  a 
pound  of  sugar  or  a  spool  of  thread,  employ  a  notary, 
or  get  a  pair  of  shoes  cobbled  or  a  horse  shod,  without 
having  to  go  to  the  neighbouring  town  of  Bethune, 
Neuve  Chapelle  became  famous  only  after  It  had 
ceased  to  exist  —  unless  a  village  remains  a  village 
after  it  has  been  reduced  to  its  original  elements  by 
shell-fire. 

It  was  the  scene  of  one  of  those  actions  In  the  long 
siege  line  which  have  the  dignity  of  a  battle;  the 
losses  on  either  side,  about  sixteen  thousand,  were 
two-thirds  of  those  at  Waterloo  or  Gettysburg. 
Here  the  British  after  the  long  winter's  stalemate  in 
the  mud,  where  they  stucic  when  the  exhausted  Ger- 
mans could  press  them  no  farther,  took  the  offensive, 
with  the  sap  of  spring  rising  In  their  veins. 

The  guns  blazed  the  way  and  the  infantry  charged 
in  the  path  of  the  guns'  destruction;  and  they  kept 

226 


IN  NEUVE  CHAPELLE  227 

on  while  the  shield  of  shell-fire  held.  When  it  left 
an  opening  for  the  German  machine  guns  through  its 
curtain  and  the  German  guns  visited  on  the  British 
what  their  guns  had  been  visiting  on  the  Germans, 
the  British  stopped.  A  lesson  was  learned;  a  prin- 
ciple established.  A  gain  was  made,  if  no  goal  were 
reached. 

The  human  stone  wall  had  moved.  It  had  broken 
some  barriers  and  come  to  rest  before  others,  again 
to  become  a  stone  wall.  But  it  knew  that  the  thing 
could  be  done  with  guns  and  shells  enough  —  and  only 
with  enough.  This  means  a  good  deal  when  you  have 
been  under  dog  for  a  long  time.  Months  were  to 
pass  waiting  for  enough  shells  and  guns,  with  many 
little  actions  and  their  steady  drain  of  life,  while  every 
one  looked  back  to  Neuve  Chapelle  as  a  landmark. 
It  was  something  definite  for  a  man  to  say  that  he 
had  been  wounded  at  Neuve  Chapelle  and  quite  in- 
definite to  say  that  he  had  been  wounded  In  the  course 
of  the  day's  work  in  the  trenches. 

No  one  might  see  the  battle  in  that  sea  of  mud. 
He  might  as  well  have  looked  at  the  smoke  of  Vesu- 
vius with  an  idea  of  learning  what  was  going  on  in- 
side of  the  crater.  I  make  no  further  attempt  at 
describing  it.  My  view  came  after  the  battle  was 
over  and  the  cauldron  was  still  steaming. 

Though  in  March,  19 14,  one  would  hardly  have 
given  Neuve  Chapelle,  intact  and  peaceful,  a  passing 
glance  from  an  automobile,  in  March,  19 15,  Neuve 
Chapelle  in  ruins  was  the  one  town  in  Europe  which 
I  most  wanted  to  see.  Correspondents  had  not  then 
established  themselves.  The  staff  officer  whom  I 
asked  if  I  might  spend  a  night  in  the  new  British  line 
was  a  cautious  man.     He  bade  me  sign  a  paper  free- 


228    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Ing  the  British  army  from  any  responsibility.  Judg- 
ing by  the  general  attitude  of  the  Staff,  one  could 
hardly  take  the  request  seriously.  One  correspondent 
less  ought  to  please  any  Staff;  but  he  said  that  he  had 
an  affection  for  the  regulars  and  knew  that  there  were 
always  plenty  of  recruits  to  take  their  places  without 
resorting  to  conscription.  The  real  responsibility  was 
with  the  Germans.  He  suggested  that  I  might  go 
out  to  the  German  trenches  and  see  if  I  could  obtain 
a  paper  from  them.  He  thought  if  I  were  quick 
about  it  I  might  get  at  least  a  yard  in  front  of  the 
British  parapet  in  daylight.  His  sense  of  humour 
I  had  recognised  when  we  had  met  in  Bulgaria. 

Any  traveller  Is  bound  to  meet  men  whom  he  has 
met  before  in  the  travelled  British  army.  At  the 
brigade  headquarters  town,  which,  as  one  of  the  offi- 
cers said,  proved  that  bricks  and  mortar  can  float  in 
mud,  the  face  of  the  brigadier  seemed  familiar  to 
me.  I  found  that  I  had  met  him  in  Shanghai  in  the 
Boxer  campaign,  when  he  had  come  across  a  riotous 
China  from  India  on  one  of  those  journeys  in  re- 
mote Asia  which  British  officers  are  fond  of  making. 
He  was  "  all  there,"  whether  dealing  v/ith  a  mob  of 
Orientals  or  with  Germans  in  the  trenches.  I  made 
myself  at  home  in  the  parlour  of  the  private  house 
occupied  by  himself  and  staff,  while  he  went  on  with 
his  work.  No  flag  outside  the  house;  no  sign  that  it 
was  Headquarters.  An  automobile  stopped  in  front 
only  long  enough  for  an  oflicer  to  enter  it  or  alight 
from  it.  Brigade  headquarters  is  precisely  the  tar- 
get that  German  aeroplanes  or  spies  like  to  locate 
for  their  guns. 

"  Are  you  ready?  Have  you  your  rubber  boots?  " 
the  brigadier  asked  a  few  minutes  later,  as  he  put  his 


IN  NEUVE  CHAPELLE  229 

head  in  at  the  parlour  door.  It  would  not  do  to  ap- 
proach the  trenches  until  after  dark.  Of  course,  I 
had  rubber  boots.  One  might  as  well  try  to  go  to 
sea  without  a  boat  as  to  trenches  without  rubber 
boots  in  winter.  "  I'll  take  my  constitutional,"  he 
added;  "the  trouble  with  this  kind  of  war  is  that 
you  get  no  exercise." 

He  was  a  small  man,  but  how  he  could  walk!  I 
began  to  understand  why  the  Boxers  could  not  catch 
him.  He  turned  back  after  we  had  gone  a  mile  or 
more  and  one  of  his  staff  went  on  with  me  to  a  point 
where,  just  at  dusk,  I  was  turned  over  to  another 
pilot,  an  aide  from  battalion  headquarters,  and  we  set 
out  across  sodden  fields  that  had  yielded  beet  root  in 
the  last  harvest,  taking  care  not  to  step  in  shell-holes. 
Dusk  settled  into  darkness.  No  human  being  was  in 
sight  except  ourselves. 

"  There's  the  first  line  of  German  trenches  before 
the  attack,"  said  my  companion.  "  Our  guns  got 
fairly  on  them."  Dimly  I  saw  what  seemed  like  a 
huge,  long,  irregular  furrow  of  earth  which  had  been 
torn  almost  out  of  the  shape  of  a  trench  by  British 
shells.  "  There  was  no  hving  in  it  when  the  guns 
began  all  together.  The  only  thing  to  do  was  to 
get  out." 

Around  us  was  utter  silence,  where  the  hell  of 
thunders  and  destruction  by  the  artillery  had  raged 
during  the  battle.  Then  a  spent  or  ricochet  bullet 
swept  overhead,  with  the  whistle  of  complaint  of 
spent  bullets  at  having  travelled  far  without  hitting 
any  object.  It  had  gone  high  over  the  British 
trenches ;  it  had  carried  the  full  range ;  and  the  chance 
of  its  hitting  any  one  was  ridiculously  small.  But  the 
nearer  you  get  to  the  trenches,  the  more  likely  these 


230    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

strays  are  to  find  a  victim.  "  Hit  by  a  stray  bullet  I  " 
is  a  very  common  saying  at  the  front. 

At  last  we  felt  the  solidity  of  a  paved  road  under 
our  feet,  and  following  this  we  came  to  a  peasant's 
cottage.  Inside,  two  soldiers  were  sitting  beside  tele- 
phone and  telegraph  instruments,  behind  a  window 
stuffed  with  sandbags.  On  our  way  across  the  fields 
we  had  stepped  on  wires  laid  on  the  ground;  we  had 
stooped  to  avoid  wires  stretched  on  poles  —  the  wires 
that  form  the  web  of  the  army's  intelligence. 

Of  course,  no  two  units  of  communication  are  de- 
pendent on  one  wire.  There  is  always  a  duplicate. 
If  one  is  broken  it  is  immediately  repaired.  The 
factories  spin  out  wire  to  talk  over  and  barbed  wire 
for  entanglements  in  front  of  trenches  and  weave 
millions  of  bags  to  be  filled  with  sand  for  breastworks 
to  protect  men  from  bullets.  If  Sir  John  French 
wished,  he  could  talk  with  Lord  Kitchener  in  London 
and  this  battalion  headquarters  at  Neuve  Chapelle 
v/ithin  the  same  space  of  time  that  a  railroad  president 
may  speak  over  the  long  distance  from  Chicago  to 
New  York  and  order  dinner  out  in  the  suburbs. 

These  two  men  at  the  table,  their  faces  tanned  by 
exposure,  men  in  the  thirties,  had  the  British  regular 
of  long  service  stamped  all  over  them.  War  was  an 
old  story  to  them;  and  an  old  story,  too,  laying  sig- 
nal wires  under  fire. 

"  We're  very  comfortable,"  said  one.  "  No  dan- 
ger from  stray  bullets  or  from  shrapnel;  but  if  one 
of  the  Jack  Johnsons  come  in,  why,  there's  no  more 
cottage  and  no  more  argument  between  you  and  me. 
We're  dead  and  maybe  buried,  or  maybe  scattered 
over  the  landscape,  along  with  the  broken  pieces  of 
the  roof." 


IN  NEUVE  CHAPELLE  231 

A  soldier  was  on  guard  with  bayonet  fixed  inside 
that  little  room,  which  had  passageway  to  the  cellar 
past  the  table,  among  straw  beds.  This  seemed 
rather  peculiar.  The  reason  lay  on  one  of  the  beds 
in  a  private's  khaki.  He  had  come  into  this  bat- 
talion's trenches  from  our  front  and  said  that  he  be- 
longed to  the  D regiment  and  had  been  out  on 

patrol  and  lost  his  way. 

It  was  two  miles  to  that  regiment  and  two  miles 
is  a  long  distance  to  stray  between  two  lines  of  trenches 
so  close  together,  when  at  any  point  in  your  own  line 
you  will  find  friends.  It  was  possible  that  this  fel- 
low's real  name  was  Hans  Schmidt,  who  had  learned 
cockney  English  in  childhood  in  London,  and  in  a 
dead  British  private's  uniform  had  come  into  the  Brit- 
ish trenches  to  get  information  to  which  he  was  any- 
thing but  welcome.     He  was  to  be  sent  under  guard 

to  the  D regiment  for  identification;  and  if  he 

were  found  to  be  a  Hans  and  not  a  Tommy  —  well, 
though  he  had  tried  a  very  stupid  dodge  he  must  have 
known  what  to  expect  when  he  was  found  out,  if  his 
ofiicers  had  properly  trained  him  in  German  rules  of 
war. 

I  had  a  glimpse  of  him  in  the  candlelight  before 
stooping  to  feel  my  way  down  three  or  four  narrow 
steps  to  the  cellar,  where  the  farmer  ordinarily  kept 
potatoes  and  vegetables.  There  were  straw  beds 
around  the  walls  here,  too.  The  major  commanding 
the  battalion  rose  from  his  seat  at  a  table  on  which 
were  some  cutlery,  a  jam  pot,  tobacco,  pipes,  a  news- 
paper or  two,  and  army  telegraph  forms  and  maps. 

If  the  hosts  of  mansions  could  only  make  their  hos- 
pitahty  as  simple  as  the  major's,  there  would  be  less 
affectation  in  the  world.     He  introduced  me  to  an  offi- 


232    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

cer  sitting  on  the  other  side  of  the  table  and  to  one 
lying  in  his  blankets  against  the  wall,  who  lifted  his 
head  and  Winked  and  said  that  he  was  very  glad  to 
see  me. 

It  is  a  small  world,  for  China  cropped  up  here,  as 
it  had  at  brigade  headquarters.  The  major  had  been 
in  garrison  at  Peking  when  the  war  began.  If  my 
shipmate  on  a  long  battleship  cruise,  Lt.-Col.  Dion 
Williams,  U.S.M.C.,  reads  this  out  in  Peking,  let  it 
tell  him  that  the  major  is  just  as  urbane  in  the  cellar 
of  a  second-rate  farmhouse  on  the  outskirts  of  Neuve 
Chapelle  as  he  would  be  in  a  corner  of  the  Peking 
Club, 

"  How  is  it?  Paining  you  any?  "  asked  the  major 
of  Captain  P ,  on  the  other  side  of  the  table. 

"  No  account.  It's  quite  all  right,"  said  the  cap- 
tain. 

"  Using  the  sling?  " 

"  Part  of  the  time.     Hardly  need  it,  though." 

Captain  P was  one  of  those  men  whose  eyes  are 

always  smiling;  who  seems,  wherever  he  is,  to  be  glad 
that  he  is  not  in  a  worse  place;  who  goes  right  on 
smiling  at  the  mud  in  the  trenches  and  bullets  and 
shells  and  death.  They  are  not  emotional,  the  Brit- 
ish, perhaps,  but  they  are  given  to  cheeriness,  if  not  to 
laughter,  and  they  have  a  way  of  smiling  at  times 
when  smiles  are  much  needed.  The  smile  is  more 
often  found  at  the  front  than  back  at  Headquarters; 
or  perhaps  it  is  more  noticeable  there. 

"  You  see,  he  got  a  bullet  through  the  arm  yes- 
terday," the  major  explained.  "  He  was  reported 
wounded,  but  remained  on  duty  in  the  trench."  I  saw 
that  the  captain  would  rather  not  have  publicity  given 
to  such  an  ordinary  incident.     He  did  not  see  why 


IN  NEUVE  CHAPELLE  233 

people  should  talk  about  his  arm.  "  You  are  to  go 
with  him  into  the  trench  for  the  night,"  the  major 
added;  and  I  thought  myself  very  lucky  in  my  com- 
panion. 

"  Aren't  you  going  to  have  dinner  with  us?  "  the 
major  asked  him. 

"  Why,  I  had  something  to  eat  not  very  long  ago," 

said  Captain  P .     One  was  not  sure  whether  he 

had  or  not. 

"  There's  plenty,"  said  the  major. 

"  In  that  event,  I  don't  see  why  I  shouldn't  eat  when 
I  have  a  chance,"  the  captain  returned;  which  I  found 
was  a  characteristic  trench  habit,  particularly  in  win- 
ter when  exposure  to  the  raw,  cold  air  calls  for  plenty 
of  body-furnace  heat. 

We  had  a  ration  soup  and  ration  ham  and  ration 
prunes  and  cheese ;  what  Tommy  Atkins  gets.  When 
we  were  outside  the  house  and  starting  for  the  trench, 
this  captain,  with  his  wounded  arm,  wanted  to  carry 
my  knapsack.  He  seemed  to  think  that  refusal  was 
breaking  The  Hague  conventions. 

Where  we  turned  off  the  road,  broken  finger-points 
of  brick  walls  in  the  faint  moonlight  indicated  the 
site  of  Neuve  Chapelle;  other  fragments  of  walls  in 
front  of  us  were  the  remains  of  a  house;  and  that 
broken  tree-trunk  showed  what  a  big  shell  can  do. 
The  trunk,  a  good  eighteen  inches  in  diameter,  had 
not  only  been  cut  in  two  by  one  of  the  monsters  of  the 
new  British  artillery,  but  had  been  carried  on  for  ten 
feet  and  left  lying  solidly  in  the  bed  of  splinters  of 
the  top  of  the  stump.  All  this  had  been  in  the  field 
of  that  battle  of  a  day,  which  was  as  fierce  as  the 
fiercest  day  at  Gettysburg  and  fought  within  about 
the  same  space.     Every  tree,   every  square  rod  of 


234    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ground,  had  been  paid  for  by  shells,  bullets,  and  hu- 
man life. 

But  now  we  were  near  the  trenches;  or,  rather, 
the  breastworks.  We  are  always  speaking  of  the 
trenches,  while  not  all  parts  of  the  line  are  held  by 
trenches.  A  trench  Is  dug  In  the  ground;  a  breast- 
work Is  raised  from  the  level  of  the  ground.  At  some 
points  a  trench  becomes  practically  a  breastwork,  as 
its  wall  Is  raised  to  get  free  of  the  mud  and  water. 

We  came  into  the  open  and  heard  the  sound  of 
voices  and  saw  a  spotty  white  wall;  for  some  of  the 
sandbags  of  the  new  British  breastworks  still  retained 
their  original  colour.  On  the  reverse  side  of  this 
wall  rifles  were  leaning  in  readiness,  their  fixed  bay- 
onets faintly  gleaming  in  the  moonlight.  I  felt  of 
the  edge  of  one  and  it  was  sharp,  quite  prepared  for 
business.  In  the  surroundings  of  damp  earth  and 
mud-bespattered  men,  this  rifle  seemed  the  cleanest 
thing  of  all,  meticulously  clean,  that  ready  weapon 
whose  well-aimed  and  telling  fire,  in  obedient  and 
cool  hands,  was  the  object  of  all  the  drill  of  the  new 
infantry  in  England;  of  all  the  drill  of  all  Infantry. 
Where  pickets  watched  in  the  open  In  the  old  days  be- 
fore armies  met  in  pitched  battle,  an  occasional  sol- 
dier now  stands  with  rifle  laid  on  the  parapet,  watch- 
ing. 

Across  a  reach  of  field  faintly  were  made  out  the 
white  spots  of  another  wall  of  breastworks,  the  Ger- 
man, at  the  edge  of  a  stretch  of  woods,  the  Bols  du 
Bies.  The  British  reached  these  woods  in  their  ad- 
vance; but,  their  aeroplanes  being  unable  to  spot  the 
fall  of  shells  in  the  mist,  they  had  to  fall  back  for 
want  of  artillery  support.  Along  this  line  where  we 
stood  outside  the  village  they  stopped;  and  to  stop  Is 


IN  NEUVE  CHAPELLE  235 

to  set  the  spades  going  to  begin  the  defences  which, 
later,  had  risen  to  a  man's  height,  and  with  rifles  and 
machine  guns  had  riddled  the  German  counter-attack. 

And  the  Germans  had  to  go  back  to  the  edge  of  the 
woods,  where  they,  too,  began  digging  and  building 
their  new  line.  So  the  enemies  were  fixed  again  be- 
hind their  walls  of  earth,  facing  each  other  across  the 
open,  where  it  was  death  for  any  man  to  expose  him- 
self by  day. 

"Will  you  have  a  shot,  sir?"  one  of  the  sentries 
asked  me. 

"At  what?" 

"  Why,  at  the  top  of  the  trench  over  there,  or  at 
anything  you  see  moving,"  he  said. 

But  I  did  not  think  that  it  was  an  invitation  for  a 
non-combatant  to  accept.  If  the  bullet  went  over  the 
top  of  the  trench  it  had  still  two  thousand  yards  and 
more  to  go,  and  it  might  find  a  target  before  it  died. 
So,  in  view  of  the  law  of  probabilities,  no  bullet  is 
quite  waste. 

"  Now,  which  Is  my  house?  "  asked  Captain  P . 

"  I  really  can't  find  my  own  home  in  the  dark." 

Behind  the  breastwork  were  many  little  houses 
three  or  four  feet  in  height,  all  of  the  same  pattern, 
and  made  of  boards  and  mud.  The  mud  is  put  on  top 
to  keep  out  shrapnel  bullets. 

"  Here  you  are,  sir!  "  said  a  soldier. 

Asking  me  to  wait  until  he  made  a  light,  the  cap- 
tain bent  over  as  if  he  were  about  to  crawl  under  the 
top  rail  of  a  fence  and  his  head  disappeared.  After 
he  had  put  a  match  to  a  candle  and  stuck  it  on  a  stick 
thrust  into  the  wall,  I  could  see  the  interior  of  his 
habitation.  A  rubber  sheet  spread  on  the  moist  earth 
served   as   floor,   carpet,   mattress,   and  bed.     At   a 


236  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

squeeze  there  was  room  for  two  others  besides  him- 
self. They  did  not  need  any  doormat,  for  when  they 
lay  down  their  feet  would  be  at  the  door. 

"  Quite  cosy,  don't  you  think?  "  remarked  the  cap- 
tain. He  seemed  to  feel  that  he  had  a  royal  chamber. 
But,  then,  he  was  the  kind  of  man  who  might  sleep  in 
a  muddy  field  under  a  wagon  and  regard  the  shelter 
of  the  wagon  body  as  a  luxury.  "  Leave  your  knap- 
sack here,"  he  continued,  "  and  we'll  go  and  see  what 
is  doing  along  the  line." 

In  other  words,  after  you  had  left  your  bag  in  the 
host's  hall,  he  suggested  a  stroll  in  the  village  or  across 
the  fields.  But  only  to  see  war  would  he  have  asked 
you  to  walk  in  such  mud. 

"Not  quite  so  loud!  "  he  warned  a  soldier  who 
was  bringing  up  boards  from  the  rear  under  cover  of 
darkness.     "  If  the  Germans  hear  they  may  start  fir- 

Two  other  men  were  piling  mud  on  top  of  a  section 
of  breastwork  at  an  angle  to  the  main  line. 

"  What  is  that  for?  "  the  captain  asked. 

"  They  get  an  enfilade  on  us  here,  sir,  and  Mr. 
(the  lieutenant)  told  me  to  make  this  higher." 

"  That's  no  good.  A  bullet  will  go  right  through," 
said  the  captain.  "  We'll  have  to  wait  until  we  get 
more  sandbags." 

A  little  farther  on  we  came  to  an  open  space,  with 
no  protection  between  us  and  the  Germans.  Half  a 
dozen  men  were  piling  earth  against  a  staked  chicken 
wire  to  extend  the  breastworks.  Rather,  they  were 
piling  mud,  and  they  were  besmirched  from  head  to 
foot.  They  looked  like  reeking  Neptunes  rising  from 
a  slough.     In  the  same  position  in  daylight,  standing 


IN  NEUVE  CHAPELLE  237 

full  height  before  German  rifles  at  three  hundred 
yards,  they  would  have  been  shot  dead  before  they 
could  leap  to  cover. 

"How  does  it  go?"  asked  the  captain. 

"Very  well,  sir;  though  what  we  need  is  sand- 
bags." 

"  We'll  have  some  up  to-morrow." 

At  the  moment  there  was  no  firing  in  the  vicinity. 
Faintly  I  heard  the  Germans  pounding  stakes,  at 
work  improving  their  own  breastworks. 

A  British  soldier  appeared  out  of  the  darkness  in 
front. 

"  We've  found  two  of  our  men  out  there  with  their 
heads  blown  off  by  shells,"  he  said.  "  Have  we  per- 
mission to  go  out  and  bury  them,  sir?  " 

"  Yes." 

They  would  be  as  safe  as  the  fellows  piling  mud 
against  the  chicken  wire,  unless  the  Germans  opened 
fire.  If  they  did,  we  could  fire  on  their  working 
party,  or  in  the  direction  of  the  sound.  For  that 
matter,  we  knew  through  our  glasses  by  day  the  loca- 
tion of  any  weak  places  in  their  breastworks  and  they 
knew  where  ours  were.  A  sort  of  "  after-you-gentle- 
men-if-you-fire-we-shall  "  understanding  sometimes  ex- 
ists between  the  foes  up  to  a  certain  point.  Each 
side  understands  instinctively  the  limitation  of  that 
point.  Too  much  noise  in  working;  a  number  of 
men  going  out  to  bury  dead  or  making  enough  noise 
to  be  heard,  and  the  ball  begins.  A  deep,  broad 
ditch  filled  with  water  made  a  break  in  our  Hne.  No 
doubt  a  German  machine  gun  was  trained  on  it. 

"  A  little  bridging  is  required  here,"  said  the  cap- 
tain.    "  We'll  have  it  done  to-morrow  night.     The 


238  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

break  Is  no  disadvantage  If  they  attack;  In  fact,  we'd 
rather  like  to  have  them  try  for  It.  But  It  makes 
movement  along  the  line  difficult  by  day." 

When  we  were  across  and  once  more  behind  the 
breastworks,  he  called  my  attention  to  some  high 
ground  in  the  rear. 

"  One  of  our  officers  took  a  short  cut  across  there 
In  daylight,"  he  said.  "  He  was  quite  exposed  and 
they  drew  a  bead  on  him  from  the  German  trench 
and  got  him  through  the  arm.  Not  a  serious  hit. 
It  wasn't  cricket  for  any  one  to  go  out  to  bring  him 
In.  He  realised  this  and  called  out  to  leave  him  to 
himself,  and  crawled  to  cover  on  his  hands  and  knees." 

I  was  getting  the  commonplaces  of  trench  life. 
Thus  far  It  had  been  a  quiet  night  and  was  to  remain 
so.  Reddish,  flickering  swaths  of  light  were  thrown 
across  the  fields  between  the  trenches  by  the  enemy's 
Roman  candle  flares.  One  tried  to  estimate  how 
many  flares  the  Germans  must  use  every  night  from 
Switzerland  to  the  North  Sea. 

On  our  side,  the  only  light  was  from  our  braziers. 
Thomas  Atkins  has  become  a  patron  of  braziers  made 
by  punching  holes  in  buckets;  and  so  have  the  Ger- 
mans. Punch  holes  In  a  bucket,  start  a  fire  inside, 
and  you  have  cheer  and  warmth  and  light  through  the 
long  night  vigils.  Two  or  three  days  before  we  had 
located  a  sniper  between  the  lines  by  seeing  him  swing 
his  fire  pot  to  make  a  draft  against  the  embers. 

If  you  have  ever  sat  around  a  campfire  in  the  for- 
est or  on  the  plains  you  need  be  told  nothing  further. 
One  of  the  old,  glamourous  features  of  war  survives 
in  these  glowing  braziers,  spreading  their  genial  rays 
among  the  little  houses  and  lighting  the  faces  of  the 
men  who  stand  or  squat  in  encircling  groups  around 


IN  NEUVE  CHAPELLE  239 

the  coals,  which  dry  wet  clothes,  slake  the  moisture  of 
a  section  of  earth,  make  the  bayonets  against  the  walls 
glisten,  and  reveal  the  position  of  a  machine  gun  with 
its  tape  ready  for  firing. 

Values  are  relative,  and  a  brazier  in  the  trenches 
makes  the  satisfaction  of  a  steam-heated  room  in  win- 
ter very  superficial  and  artificial.  You  are  at  home 
there  with  Tommy  Atkins,  regular  of  an  old  line  Eng- 
lish regiment,  in  his  heavy  khaki  overcoat  and  solid 
boots  and  wool  puttees,  a  sturdy,  hardened  man  of 
a  terrific  war.  He,  the  regular,  the  shilllng-a-day 
policeman  of  the  empire,  was  still  doing  the  fighting 
at  the  front.  The  new  army,  which  embraces  all 
classes,  was  not  yet  in  action. 

This  man  and  that  one  were  at  Mons.  This  one 
and  that  one  had  been  through  the  whole  campaign 
without  once  seeing  Mother  England  for  whom  they 

were  fighting.     The  affection  In  which  Captain  P 

was  held  extended  through  his  regiment,  for  we  had 
left  his  own  company  behind.  At  every  turn  he  was 
asked  about  his  arm. 

"  You've  made  a  mistake,  sir.  This  isn't  a  hos- 
pital," as  one  man  expressed  it.  Oh,  but  the  captain 
was  bored  with  hearing  about  that  arm!  If  he  is 
wounded  again  I  am  sure  that  he  will  try  to  keep  the 
fact  a  secret. 

These  veterans  could  "  grouse,"  as  the  British  call 
It.  Grousing  is  one  of  Tommy's  privileges.  When 
they  got  to  grousing  worst  on  the  retreat  from  Mons, 
their  officers  knew  that  what  they  really  wanted  was 
to  make  another  stand.  They  were  tired  of  falling 
back;  they  meant  to  take  a  rest  and  fight  a  while. 
Their  language  was  yours,  the  language  in  which  our 
own  laws  and  schoolbooks  are  written.     They  made 


240    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  old  blood  call.  For  months  they  had  been  taking 
bitter  medicine;  very  bitter  for  a  British  soldier. 
The  way  they  took  it  will,  perhaps,  remain  a  greater 
tribute  than  any  part  they  play  in  future  victories. 

"  How  do  they  feel  in  the  States?  "  I  was  asked. 
"Against  us?" 

"  No.     By  no  means." 

"  I  don't  see  how  they  could  be !  "  Tommy  ex- 
claimed. 

Tommy  may  not  be  much  on  argument  as  it  is  de- 
veloped by  the  controversial  spirit  of  college  profes- 
sors, but  he  had  said  about  all  there  was  to  say.  How 
can  we  be?  Hardly,  after  you  come  to  know  T. 
Atkins  and  his  officers  and  talk  English  with  them 
around  their  campfires. 

"  The  Germans  are  always  sending  up  flares,"  I 
remarked.     "You  send  up  none.     How  about  it?" 

"It  cheers  them.  They're  downhearted!"  said 
one  of  the  group.  "  You  wouldn't  deny  them  their 
fireworks,  would  you,  sir?  " 

"  That  shows  who  is  top  dog,"  said  another. 
"  They're  the  ones  that  are  worried." 

I  had  heard  of  trench  exhaustion,  trench  despair, 
but  there  was  no  sign  of  it  in  a  regiment  that  had 
been  through  all  the  hell  and  mire  that  the  British 
army  had  known  since  the  war  began.  To  no  one 
had  Neuve  Chapelle  meant  so  much  as  to  these  com- 
mon soldiers.  It  was  their  first  real  victory.  They 
were  standing  on  soil  won  from  the  Germans. 

"  We're  going  to  Berlin !  "  said  a  big  fellow  who 
was  standing,  palms  downward  to  the  fire.  "  It's  set- 
tled.    We're  going  to  Berlin." 

A  smaller  man  with  his  back  against  the  sandbags 
disagreed.     There  was  a  trench  argument. 


IN  NEUVE  CHAPELLE  241 

"  No,  we're  going  to  the  Rhine,"  he  said.  "  The 
Russians  are  going  to  Berlin."  (This  was  in  March, 
19 1 5,  remember.) 

"  How  can  they  when  they  ain't  over  the  Balkans 
yet?" 

"  The  Carpathians,  you  mean." 

"  Well,  they're  both  mountains  and  the  Russians 
have  got  to  cross  them.  And  there's  a  place  called 
Cracow  in  that  region.  What's  the  matter  of  a  pair 
of  mountain  ranges  between  you  and  me.  Bill? 
You're  strong  on  geography,  but  you  fail  to  follow 
the  campaign." 

"The  Rhine,  I  say!" 

"  It's  the  Rhine  first,  but  Berlin  is  what  you  want 
to  keep  your  mind  on." 

Then  I  asked  if  they  had  ever  had  any  doubt  that 
they  would  reach  the  Rhine. 

"  How  could  we,  sir?  " 

"  And  how  about  the  Germans.  Do  you  hate 
them?" 

"Hate!"  exclaimed  the  big  man.  "What  good 
would  it  do  to  hate  them  ?  No,  we  don't  hate.  We 
get  our  blood  up  when  we're  fighting  and  when  they 
don't  play  the  game.  But  hate!  Don't  you  think 
that's  kind  of  ridiculous,  sir?  " 

"How  do  they  fight?" 

"  They  take  a  bit  of  beating,  do  the  Boches!  " 

"  So  you  call  them  Boches!  " 

"  Yes.  They  don't  like  that.  But  sometimes  we 
call  them  Allemands,  which  is  Germans  in  French. 
Oh,  we're  getting  quite  French  scholars!  " 

"  They're  good  soldiers.  Not  many  tricks  they're 
not  up  to.  But  in  my  opinion  they're  overdoing  the 
hate.     You  can't  keep  up  to  your  work  on  hate,  sir. 


242    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

I  should  think  It  would  be  weakening  to  the  mind, 
too." 

"  Still,  you  would  like  the  war  over?  You'd  like 
to  go  home?  " 

They  certainly  would.  Back  to  the  barracks,  out 
of  the  trenches.     They  certainly  would. 

"And  call  it  a  draw?" 

"  Call  it  a  draw,  now !  Call  it  a  draw,  after  all 
we've  been  through  — " 

"  Spring  is  coming.  The  ground  will  dry  up  and 
it  will  be  warm." 

"  And  the  going  will  be  good  to  Berlin,  as  it  was 
back  from  Paris  in  August,  we  tell  the  Boches." 

"  Good  for  the  Russians  going  over  the  Carpa- 
thians, or  the  Pyrenees,  or  whatever  those  mountains 
are,  too.  I  read  they're  all  covered  with  snow  in 
winter." 

It  was  good,  regular  soldier  talk,  very  "  homey  " 
to  me.  As  you  will  observe,  I  have  not  elided  the 
h's.  Indeed,  Tommy  has  a  way  of  prefixing  his  h's 
to  the  right  vowels  more  frequently  than  a  genera- 
tion ago.  The  "  Soldiers  Three  "  type  has  passed. 
Popular  education  will  have  its  way  and  induce  better 
habits.  Believing  in  the  old  remedy  for  exhaustion 
and  exposure  to  cold,  the  army  served  out  a  tot  of 
rum  every  day  to  the  men.  But  many  of  them  are 
teetotalers,  these  hardy  regulars,  and  not  even  Mul- 
vaney  will  think  them  effeminate  when  they  have  seen 
fighting  which  makes  anything  Mulvaney  ever  saw 
child's  play.  So  they  asked  for  candy  and  chocolate, 
instead  of  rum. 

Some  people  have  said  that  Tommy  has  no  patriot- 
ism. He  fights  because  he  is  paid  and  it  is  his  busi- 
ness.    That  is  an  insinuation.  Tommy  doesn't  care 


IN  NEUVE  CHAPELLE  243 

for  the  "  hero  stuff,"  or  for  waving  flags  and  speech- 
making.  Possibly  he  knows  how  few  Germans  that 
sort  of  thing  kills.  His  weapons  are  bullets.  To 
put  it  cogently,  he  is  fighting  because  he  doesn't  want 
any  Kaiser  in  his. 

Is  not  that  what  all  the  speeches  In  Parliament  are 
about  and  all  the  editorials  and  the  recruiting  cam- 
paign? Is  not  that  what  England  and  France  are 
fighting  for?  It  seems  to  me  that  Tommy's  is  a  very 
practical  patriotism,  free  from  cant;  and  the  way  that 
he  refuses  to  hate  or  to  get  excited,  but  sticks  to  it, 
must  be  very  irritating  to  the  Germans. 

"  Would  you  like  a  Boche  helmet  for  a  souvenir, 
sir?  "  asked  a  soldier,  who  appeared  on  the  outer  edge 
of  the  group.  He  was  the  small,  active  type,  a  British 
soldier  with  the  elan  of  the  Frenchman.  "  There  are 
lots  of  them  out  there  among  the  German  dead  " — 
the  unburied  German  dead,  who  fell  like  grass  before 
the  mower  in  a  desperate  and  futile  counter-attack  to 
recover  Neuve  Chapelle.  "  I'll  have  one  for  you  on 
your  way  back." 

There  was  no  stopping  him;  he  had  gone. 

"Matty's  a  devil!"  said  the  big  man.  "He'll 
get  it,  all  right.  He's  equal  to  reaching  over  the 
Bodies'  parapet  and  picking  one  off  a  Boche' s  head !  " 

As  we  proceeded  on  our  way,  officers  came  out  of 

the   little   houses   to   meet   Captain   P and  the 

stranger  civilian.  They  had  to  come  out,  as  there  was 
no  room  to  take  us  inside;  and  sometimes  they  talked 
shop  together  after  I  had  answered  the  usual  question, 
"  Is  America  against  us?"  There  seemed  to  be  an 
idea  that  we  were,  possibly  because  of  the  prodigious 
advertising  tactics  of  a  minority.  But  any  feeling  that 
we  might  be  did  not  interfere  with  their  simple  cour- 


244    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tcsy,  or  lead  them  to  express  any  bitterness  or  break 
into  argument. 

"How  are  things  going  on  over  your  side?" 
"  Nicely." 
"Any  shelling?" 

"  A  little  this  morning.     No  harm  done." 
"  We  cleaned  out  one  bad  sniper  to-day." 
"  Ought  to  have  some  sandbags  up  to-night." 
"  It's  a  bad  place  there.     They've  got  a  machine 
gun  trained  which  has  quite  a  sweep.     I  asked  If  the 
artillery  shouldn't  put  in  a  word,  but  the  general  didn't 
think  it  worth  while." 

"  You  must  run  across  that  break.  Three  or  four 
shots  at  you  every  time.  We're  gradually  getting 
shipshape,  though." 

Just  then  a  couple  of  bullets  went  singing  overhead. 
The  group  paid  no  attention  to  them.  If  you  paid  at- 
tention to  bullets  over  the  parapet  you  would  have 
no  time  for  anything  else.  But  these  bullets  have  a 
way  of  picking  off  tall  officers,  who  are  standing  up 
among  their  houses.  In  the  course  of  their  talk  they 
happened  to  mention  such  an  instance,  though  not 
with  reference  to  the  two  bullets  I  have  mentioned. 

"  Poor  S did  not  last  long.     He  had  been  out 

only  three  weeks." 

"How  is  J ?     Hit  badly?" 

"  Through  the  shoulder;  not  seriously." 

"  H Is  back.     Recovered  very  quickly." 

Normal  trench  talk,  this !  A  crack  which  signifies 
that  the  bullet  has  hit  —  another  man  down.  One 
grows  accustomed  to  it,  and  one  of  this  group  of  offi- 
cers might  be  gone  to-morrow. 

"  I  have  one,  sir,"  said  Matty,  exhibiting  a  helmet 
when  we   returned  past  his  station.     "  Bullet  went 


IN  NEUVE  CHAPELLE  245 

right  through  the  head  and  came  out  the  peak!" 

It  was  time  that  Captain  P was  back  to  his  own 

command.  As  we  came  to  his  company's  line  word 
was  just  being  passed  from  sentry  to  sentry: 

"  Not  firing.     Patrols  going  out." 

It  was  midnight  now. 

"  We'll  go  in  the  other  direction,"  said  Captain 
P ,  when  he  had  learned  that  there  was  no  news. 

This  brought  us  to  an  Irish  regiment.  The  Irish 
naturally  had  something  to  say. 


XVII 

WITH   THE   IRISH 

The  Irish  have  something  to  say!  — The  Irish  in  America  —  The  mis- 
guided Germans  —  The  American's  visit  an  event  —  Veterans  of 
Mods  —  Eggs  in  the  trenches!  —  Irish  hospitality  —  A  dum-dum 
souvenir  —  A  memorable  drink  —  Sixty  yards  from  the  Germans 

—  The  Germans  at  work  —  British  discipline,  a  comparison  —  A 
vision  of  the  German  dead  —  German  diaries  —  Pawns  of  war 

—  A  heaven  of  soap  and  hot  water  —  In  the  captain's  "house" 

—  Soldier    shop    talk  —  Trench    appetite  —  A    village    literally 
flailed  —  Pity  the  refugees. 

Here,  not  the  Irish  Sea  lay  between  the  broad  a  and 
the  brogue,  but  the  space  between  two  sentries  or  be- 
tween two  rifles  with  bayonets  fixed,  lying  against  the 
wall  of  the  breastworks  ready  for  their  owners'  hands 
when  called  to  arms  in  case  of  an  alarm.  One  stepped 
from  England  into  Ireland;  and  my  prediction  that 
the  Irish  would  have  something  to  say  was  correct. 
They  had;  for  that  matter,  there  are  always  indi- 
vidual Irishmen  in  the  English  regiments,  lest  English 
phlegm  should  let  conversation  run  short. 

The  first  man  who  made  his  presence  felt  was  a 
good  six  feet  in  height,  with  a  heavy  moustache,  and 
the  ear-pieces  of  his  cap  tied  under  his  chin  though 
the  night  was  not  cold.  He  placed  himself  fairly  in 
front  of  me  in  the  narrow  path  back  of  the  breast- 
works and  he  looked  a  cowled  and  sinister  figure  in 
the  faint  glow  from  a  brazier.  I  certainly  did  not 
want  any  physical  argument  with  a  man  of  his  build. 

"Who  are  you?"  he  demanded,  as  stiffly  as  if  I 

246 


WITH  THE  IRISH  247 

had  broken  In  at  the  veranda  window  with  a  jimmy. 

For  the  nearer  you  get  to  the  front,  the  more  you 
feel  that  you  are  in  the  way.  You  are  a  stray  extra 
piece  of  baggage;  a  dead  human  weight.  Every  one 
is  doing  something  definite  as  a  part  of  the  machine 
except  yourself;  and  in  your  civilian  clothes  you  feel 
the  self-conscious  conspicuousness  of  appearing  on  a 
dancing-floor  in  a  dressing-gown. 

Captain  P was  a  little  way  back  in  another  pas- 
sage. I  was  alone  and  in  a  rough  tweed  suit  —  a 
strange  figure  in  that  world  of  khaki  and  rifles. 

"A  German  spy!  That's  why  I  am  dressed  this 
way,  so  as  not  to  excite  suspicion,"  I  was  going  to  say, 

when  a  call  from  Captain  P identified  me,  and 

the  sentrj^'s  attitude  changed  as  suddenly  as  if 
the  inspector  of  police  had  come  along  and  told 
a  patrolman  that  I  might  pass  through  the  fire- 
lines. 

"  So  it's  you,  is  it,  right  from  America?  "  he  said. 
"  I've  a  sister  living  at  Nashua,  New  Hampshire, 
U.  S.  A.,  with  three  brothers  in  the  United  States 
army." 

Whether  he  had  or  not  you  can  judge  as  well  as 
I  by  the  twinkle  in  his  eye.  He  might  have  had  five, 
and  again  he  might  not  have  one.  I  was  a  tenderfoot 
seeing  the  trenches. 

"  It's  mesilf  that's  going  to  America  when  me  sarv- 
ice  In  the  army  is  up  in  one  year  and  six  months," 
he  continued.  "  That's  some  time  yet.  I'm  going 
if  I'm  not  killed  by  the  Germans.  It's  a  way  that 
they  have,  or  we  wouldn't  be  killing  them." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  in  America?  Enlist 
in  the  army?  " 

"  No.     I'm  looking  for  a  better  job.     I'm  think- 


248    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ing  I'll  be  one  of  your  millionaires.  Shure,  but  that 
would  be  to  me  taste." 

"  What  do  you  think  of  the  Germans?  " 

"  It's  little  thinking  we're  doing  and  more  shooting. 
Now  do  ye  know  our  opinion  of  them?  " 

*'  Some  of  the  Irish  in  America  are  pro-Ger- 
man." 

"  Now  will  ye  listen  to  that!  Their  words  come 
out  of  their  mouths  without  acquainting  their  heads 
and  hearts  with  what  they  are  saying.  Did  you  ever 
find  nine  Irishmen  on  the  right  side  without  one  doing 
the  talking  for  the  divil  for  the  joy  of  argument? 
It's  the  Irish  that  would  be  at  home  in  the  German 
army  doing  the  goose-step  and  taking  orders  from  the 
Kaiser,  is  it  not,  now?  " 

"  And  what  about  the  Germans  —  are  they  win- 
ning? " 

"  They  started  out  strong,  singing  and  goose-step- 
ping high,  for  the  Kaiser  had  told  them  that  if  they 
died  for  him  they  could  burgle  the  world,  and  they 
thought  it  a  grand  idea.  Shure,  we  accommodated 
them.  There's  plenty  of  them  dead,  and  some  of 
them  are  wondering  If,  when  they're  all  dead,  the 
Kaiser  will  have  any  more  of  the  world  than  when  he 
started,  which  makes  them  sorry  for  him  and  they 
give  him  another  '  Hoch  ' !  'Tis  the  nature  of  them, 
because  they've  never  been  told  different." 

Not  one  Irishman  was  speaking  really,  but  a  dozen. 
They  came  out  of  their  little  houses  and  dugouts  to 
gather  around  the  brazier;  and  for  every  remark  I 
made  I  received  a  fusillade  in  reply.  It  was  an  event, 
an  American  appearing  in  that  trench  in  the  small 
hours  of  the  morning. 

"  I've  a  brother  in  Oklahoma !  "  said  one. 


WITH  THE  IRISH  249 

"  Is  he  a  millionaire  yet?"  I  asked. 

"  If  he  is  he's  keeping  it  a  secret!  " 

Some  of  them  had  been  at  Mons ;  a  few  of  them  had 
gone  through  the  whole  campaign  without  a  scratch; 
more  had  been  wounded  and  returned  to  the  front,  I 
like  to  ask  that  question,  "  Were  you  at  Mons?  "  and 
get  the  answer,  "Yes,  sir,  I  was;  I  was  through  it 
alll"  without  boasting  —  a  Mons  veteran  need  not 
boast  —  but  in  the  spirit  of  pride.  To  have  been  at 
Mons,  where  that  hard-bought  retreat  of  one  against 
five  began,  will  ever  be  enough  glory  for  English, 
Scotch,  Irish,  or  Welsh.  It  is  like  saying,  "  I  was  in 
Pickett's  charge !  " 

A  trench-toughened,  battle-toughened  old  sergeant 
was  sitting  in  the  doorway  of  his  dugout,  frying  a  strip 
of  bacon  over  one  rim  of  the  brazier  and  making  tea 
over  the  other.  The  bacon  sizzled  with  an  appetising 
aroma  and  a  bullet  sizzled  harmlessly  overhead.  Be- 
hind that  wall  of  sandbags  all  were  perfectly  safe,  un- 
less a  shell  came.  But  who  worries  about  shells?  It 
is  like  worrying  about  being  struck  by  lightning  when 
clouds  gather  in  a  summer  sky. 

"  It  looks  like  good  bacon,"  I  remarked. 

"  It  is  that!  "  said  the  sergeant.  "And  the  hun- 
grier ye  are  the  better.  It's  your  nose  that's  telling 
ye  so  this  minute.  I  can  see  that  ye're  hungry  your- 
silf!" 

"  Then  you're  pretty  well  fed?  " 

"Well  fed,  is  it?  It's  stuffed  we  are,  like  the 
geese  that  grow  the  pate  what-do-you-call-it?  Eating 
is  our  pastime.  We  eat  when  we've  nothing  else  to 
do  and  when  we've  got  to  do  something.  We  get  eggs 
up  here  —  a  fine  man  is  Lord  Kitchener  —  yes,  sir, 
eggs  up  here  in  the  trenches  1  " 


250    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

When  they  seemed  to  think  that  I  was  sceptical,  he 
produced  some  eggs  In  evidence. 

"  And  if  ye'U  not  have  the  bacon,  ye'U  have  a  drop 
of  tea.  Mind,  now,  while  your  tongue  Is  trying  to  be 
polite,  your  stomach  is  calling  your  tongue  a  liarl  " 

Irish  hospitality  responded  to  the  impulse  of  a 
warm  Irish  heart.  Wouldn't  I  have  a  souvenir? 
Out  came  German  bullets  and  buckles  and  officers' 
whistles  and  helmets  and  fragments  of  shells  and 
German  diaries. 

"  It's  easy  to  get  them  out  there  where  the  Germans 
fell  that  thick!  "  I  was  told.  "  And  will  ye  look  at 
this  and  take  It  home  to  give  your  pro-German  Irish 
in  America,  to  show  what  their  friends  are  shooting 
at  the  Irish?  I  found  them  mesilf  on  a  dead  Ger- 
man." 

He  passed  me  a  clip  of  German  bullets  with  the 
blunt  ends  instead  of  the  pointed  ends  out.  The 
change  is  readily  made,  for  the  German  bullet  is  easily 
pulled  out  of  the  cartridge  case  and  the  pointed  end 
thrust  against  the  powder.  Thus  fired,  it  goes  accu- 
rately four  or  five  hundred  yards,  which  is  more  than 
the  average  distance  between  German  and  British 
trenches.  When  it  strikes  flesh  the  effect  Is  that  of  a 
dum-dum  and  worse;  for  the  jacket  splits  into  slivers, 
which  spread  through  the  pulpy  mass  caused  by  the 
explosion.  A  leg  or  an  arm  thus  hit  must  almost  in- 
variably be  amputated.  I  am  not  suggesting  that  this 
is  a  regular  practice  with  German  soldiers,  but  it 
shows  what  wickedness  is  In  the  power  of  the  sinister 
one. 

"  But  ye'U  take  the  tea,"  said  the  sergeant,  "  with  a 
little  rum  hot  in  it.  'Twill  take  the  chill  out  of  your 
bones." 


WITH  THE  IRISH  251 

"  What  if  I  haven't  a  chill  in  my  bones?  " 

"  Maybe  it's  there  without  speaking  to  ye  and  it 
will  be  speaking  before  an  hour  longer  —  or  afther 
ye're  home  between  the  sheets  with  the  rheumatiz, 
and  ye'U  be  saying,  'Why  didn't  I  take  that  glass?  ' 
which  I'm  holding  out  to  ye  this  minute,  steaming  its 
invitation  to  be  drunk." 

Held  out  by  a  man  who  had  been  at  Mons  and 
"  through  it  all " !  It  was  a  memorable  drink 
Champagne  poured  out  by  a  butler  at  your  elbow  is 
Insipid  beside  it.  Snatches  of  brogue  followed  me 
from  the  brazier's  glow  when  I  insisted  that  I  must 
be  going. 

Now  our  breastworks  took  a  turn  and  we  were  ap- 
proaching closer  to  the  German  breastworks.  Both 
lines  remained  where  they  had  "  dug  in  "  after  the 
counter-attacks  which  had  followed  the  battle  had  been 
checked.  Ground  is  too  precious  in  this  siege  warfare 
to  yield  a  foot.  Soldiers  become  misers  of  soil. 
Where  the  flood  is  checked  there  you  build  your  dam 
against  another  flood. 

"  We  are  within  about  sixty  yards  of  the  Germans," 

said  Captain  P ,  at  length,  after  we  had  gone  in 

and  out  of  the  traverses  and  left  the  braziers  well 
behind. 

Between  the  spotty,  whitish  wall  of  German  sand- 
bags, quite  distinct  in  the  moonlight,  and  our  parapet 
were  two  mounds  of  sandbags  about  twenty  feet  apart. 
Snug  behind  one  was  a  German  and  behind  the  other 
an  Irishman,  both  Hstening.  They  were  within  easy 
bombing  range,  but  the  homicidal  advantage  of  po- 
sition of  either  resulted  in  a  truce.  Sixty  yards! 
Pace  it  off.  It  is  not  far.  In  other  places  the  enemies 
have  been  as  close  as  five  yards  —  only  a  wall  of  earth 


252  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

between  them.  Where  a  bombing  operation  ends  In 
an  attack,  a  German  is  naturally  on  one  side  of  a 
traverse  and  a  Briton  on  the  other. 

The  Germans  were  as  busy  as  beavers  dam  building. 
They  had  a  lot  of  work  to  do  before  they  had  their 
new  defences  right.  We  heard  them  driving  stakes 
and  spading;  we  heard  their  voices  with  snatches  of 
sentences  intelligible  and  occasionally  the  energetic, 
shouted,  guttural  commands  of  their  officers.  All 
through  that  night  I  never  heard  a  British  officer  speak 
above  a  conversational  tone.  The  orders  were  defi- 
nite enough,  but  given  with  a  certain  companionable 
kindliness.     I   have  spoken  of  the  genuine  affection 

which  his  men  showed  for  Captain  P ,  and  I  was 

beginning  to  appreciate  that  it  was  not  a  particular 
Instance. 

"  What  If  you  should  shout  at  Tommy  In  the  Ger- 
man fashion?"  I  asked. 

"  He  wouldn't  have  It;  he'd  get  rebellious,"  was  the 
reply.  "  No,  you  mustn't  yell  at  Tommy.  He's  a 
little  temperamental  about  some  things  and  he  will  not 
be  treated  as  if  he  were  just  a  human  machine." 

Yet  no  one  will  question  the  discipline  of  the  Brit- 
ish soldier.  Discipline  means  that  the  officer  knows 
his  men,  and  British  discipline,  which  bears  a  retreat 
like  that  from  Mons,  requires  that  the  man  likes  to 
follow  his  officers,  believes  in  his  officers,  loves  his 
officers.     Each  army  and  each  people  to  Its  own  ways. 

Sixty  yards !  And  the  dead  between  the  trenches 
and  death  lurking  ready  at  a  trigger's  pull  should  life 
show  Itself!  When  daylight  comes  the  British  sing 
out  their  "  Good  morning,  Germans!  "  and  the  Ger- 
mans answer,  "Good  morning,  British!"  without 
adding,    "We  hope  to  kill  some  of  you   to-day  I" 


WITH  THE  IRISH  253 

Ragging  banter  and  jest  and  worse  than  jest  and  grim 
defiance  are  exchanged  between  the  trenches  when 
they  are  within  such  easy  hearing  distance  of  each 
other;  but  always  from  a  safe  position  behind  the  par- 
apet which  the  adversaries  squint  across  through  their 
periscopes.     The  thing  was  ridiculous. 

At  the  gibe  business  the  German  is,  perhaps,  better 
than  the  Briton.  Early  in  the  evening  a  regiment  on 
our  right  broke  into  a  busy  fusillade  at  some  fancied 
movement  of  the  enemy.  In  trench  talk,  that  is  get- 
ting "  jumpy."  The  Germans  in  front  roared  out 
their  contempt  in  a  chorus  of  guying  laughter. 
Toward  morning,  these  same  Germans  also  became 
"  jumpy  "  and  began  tearing  the  air  with  bullets,  firing 
against  nothing  but  the  blackness  of  night.  Tommy 
Atkins  only  made  some  characteristic  comments;  for 
he  is  a  quiet  fellow,  except  when  he  is  played  on  the 
music  hall  stage.  Possibly  he  feels  the  inconsistency 
of  laughter  when  you  are  killing  human  beings;  for, 
as  his  officers  say,  he  is  temperamental  and  never  goes 
to  the  trouble  of  analysing  his  emotions.  A  very  real 
person  and  a  good  deal  of  a  philosopher  is  Mr.  At- 
kins, Britain's  professional  fighting  man,  who  was  the 
only  kind  of  fighting  man  she  had  ready  for  the  war. 

Any  small  boy  who  had  never  had  enough  fireworks 
in  his  life  might  be  given  a  job  in  the  German  trenches, 
with  the  privilege  of  firing  flares  till  he  fell  asleep 
from  exhaustion.  All  night  they  were  going,  with  the 
regularity  of  clockwork.  The  only  ones  sent  up  from 
our  side  that  night  were  shot  in  order  that  I  might  get 
a  better  view  of  the  Germ.an  dead. 

You  know  how  water  lies  in  the  low  places  on  the 
ground  after  a  heavy  rain.  Well,  the  patches  of  dead 
were  like  that,  and  dark  in  the  spots  where  they  were 


254  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

very  thick  —  dark  as  with  the  darkness  of  deeper 
water.  There  were  also  irregular  tongues  of  dead 
and  scattered  dead,  with  arms  outstretched  or  under 
them  as  they  fell,  and  faces  white  even  in  the  reddish 
glare  of  the  rockets  and  turned  toward  you  in  the 
charge  that  failed  under  the  withering  blasts  of  ma- 
chine guns,  ripping  out  two  or  three  hundred  shots  a 
minute,  and  well-aimed  rifle  bullets,  each  bullet  getting 
its  man.  Threatening  that  charge  would  have  seemed 
to  a  recruit,  but  measured  and  calculated  in  certainty 
of  failure  in  the  minds  of  veteran  defenders,  who  knew 
that  the  wheat  could  not  stand  before  their  mowers. 
Man's  flesh  is  soft  and  a  bullet  is  hard  and  travels  fast. 

One  bit  of  satire  which  Tommy  sent  across  the  field 
covered  with  its  burden  of  slaughter  to  the  Germans 
who  are  given  to  song,  ought  to  have  gone  home.  It 
was:  "Why  don't  you  stop  singing  and  bury  your 
dead?  "  But  the  Germans,  having  given  no  armistice 
in  other  times  when  British  dead  lay  before  the 
trenches,  asked  for  none  here.  The  dead  were  nearer 
to  the  British  than  to  the  Germans.  The  discomfort 
would  be  in  British  and  not  German  nostrils.  And 
the  dead  cannot  fight;  they  can  help  no  more  to  win 
victory  for  the  Fatherland.  And  the  time  is  A.  D., 
19 15.  Two  or  three  thousand  German  dead  alto- 
gether, perhaps  —  not  many  out  of  the  Kaiser's  mil- 
lions. Yet  they  seemed  a  great  many  to  one  who  saw 
them  lying  there. 

We  stopped  to  read  by  the  light  of  a  brazier  some 
German  soldiers'  diaries  that  the  Irishmen  had. 
They  were  cheap  little  books,  bought  for  a  few  cents, 
each  one  telling  the  dead  man's  story  and  revealing  the 
monotony  of  a  soldier's  existence  in  Europe  to-day. 
These  pawns  of  war  had  been  marched  here  and  there, 


WITH  THE  IRISH  255 

they  never  knew  why.  The  last  notes  were  when 
orders  came  entraining  them.  They  did  not  know 
that  they  were  to  be  sent  out  of  those  woods  yonder  to 
recover  Neuve  Chapelle  —  out  of  those  woods  in  the 
test  of  all  their  drill  and  waiting. 

A  Bavarian  officer  —  for  these  were  Bavarians  — 
actually  rode  in  that  charge.  He  must  have  worked 
himself  up  to  a  strangely  exalted  optimism  and  con- 
tempt of  British  fire.  Or  was  it  that  he,  too,  did  not 
know  what  he  was  going  against?  that  only  the  Ger- 
man general  knew?  Neither  he  nor  his  horse  lasted 
long;  not  more  than  a  dozen  seconds.  The  thing  was 
so  splendidly  foolhardy  that  in  some  little  war  it 
might  have  become  the  saga  of  a  regiment,  the  subject 
of  ballads  and  paintings.  In  this  war  it  was  an  inci- 
dent heralded  for  a  day  in  one  command  and  forgotten 
the  next. 

"  Good  night!  "  called  the  Irish. 

"  Good  night  and  good  luck!  " 

"  Tell  them  in  America  that  the  Irish  are  still  fight- 
Ing!" 

"  Good  luck,  and  may  your  travelling  be  aisy;  but 
if  ye  trip,  may  ye  fall  into  a  gold  mine  1  " 

We  were  back  with  the  British  regulars;  and  here, 
also,  many  of  the  men  remained  up  around  the 
braziers.  The  hours  of  duty  of  the  few  on  watch  do 
not  take  many  of  the  twenty-four  hours.  One  may 
sleep  when  he  chooses  in  the  little  houses  behind  the 
breastworks.  Night  melts  into  day  and  day  into 
night  in  the  monotony  of  mud  and  sniping  rifle-fire. 
By-and-by  it  is  your  turn  to  go  into  reserve;  your 
turn  to  get  out  of  your  clothes  —  for  there  are  no 
pajamas  for  officers  or  men  in  these  "  crawls,"  as  they 
are  sometimes  called.     Boots  off  is  the  only  undress- 


256    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ing;  boots  off  and  puttees  unloosed,  which  saves  the 
feet.  Yes,  by-and-by  the  march  back  to  the  rear, 
where  there  are  tubs  filled  with  hot  water  and  an  outfit 
of  clean  clothes  awaiting  you,  and  nothing  to  do  but 
rest  and  sleep. 

"  How  soon  after  we  leave  the  trenches  may  we 
cheer?  "  officers  have  been  asked  in  the  dead  of  win- 
ter, when  water  stood  deep  over  the  porous  mud  and 
morning  found  a  scale  of  ice  around  the  legs. 

You,  nicely  testing  the  temperature  of  your  morn- 
ing tub;  you,  satisfied  only  with  faucets  of  hot  and  cold 
water  and  a  mat  to  stand  on  —  you  know  nothing 
about  the  joy  of  bathing.  Your  bath  is  a  mere  part 
of  the  daily  routine  of  existence.  Try  the  trenches 
and  get  itchy  with  vermin;  then  you  will  know  that 
heaven  consists  of  soap  and  hot  water. 

No  bad  odour  assails  your  nostrils  wherever  you 
may  go  in  the  British  lines.  Its  cleanliness,  if  noth- 
ing else,  would  make  British  army  comradeship  enjoy- 
able. My  wonder  never  ceases  how  Tommy  keeps 
himself  so  neat;  how  he  manages  to  shave  every  day 
and  get  a  part,  at  least,  of  the  mud  off  his  uniform. 
It  makes  him  feel  more  as  if  he  were  "  at  home  "  In 
barracks. 

From  the  breastworks.  Captain  P and  I  went 

for  a  stroll  in  the  village,  or  the  site  of  the  village, 
silent  except  for  the  occasional  singing  of  a  bullet. 
When  we  returned  he  lighted  the  candle  on  a  stick 
stuck  into  the  wall  of  his  Httle  earth-roofed  house  and 
suggested  a  nap.  It  was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Now  I  could  see  that  my  rubber  boots  had  grown  so 
heavy  because  I  was  carrying  so  much  of  the  soil  of 
Northern  France.  It  looked  as  if  I  had  gout  in  both 
feet  —  the    over-bandaged,    stage    type    of    gout  — 


WITH  THE  IRISH  257 

which  were  encased  in  large  mud  poultices.  I  tried  to 
stamp  off  the  incubus,  but  it  would  not  go.  I  tried 
scraping  one  foot  on  the  other,  and  what  I  scraped  off 
seemed  to  reattach  itself  as  fast  as  I  could  remove  it. 

"  Don't  try!  "  said  the  captain.  "  Lie  down  and 
pull  your  boots  off  in  the  doorway.  Perhaps  you  will 
get  some  sleep  before  daybreak." 

Sleep!  Does  a  debutante  go  to  sleep  at  her  first 
ball?  Sleep  in  such  good  company,  the  company  of 
this  captain,  who  was  smiling  all  the  while  with  his 
eyes;  smiling  at  his  mud  house,  at  the  hardships  in  the 
trenches,  and,  I  hope,  at  having  a  guest,  who  had  been 
with  armies  before ! 

It  was  the  first  time  that  I  had  been  In  the  trenches 
all  night;  the  first  time,  indeed,  when  I  had  not  been 
taken  into  them  by  an  escort  in  a  kind  of  promenade. 
On  this  visit  I  was  In  the  family.  If  it  Is  the  right 
kind  of  a  family  that  is  the  way  to  get  a  good  impres- 
sion. There  would  be  plenty  of  time  to  sleep  when  I 
returned  to  London. 

So  Captain  P and  I  lay  there  talking.     One 

felt  the  dampness  of  the  earth  under  his  body  and  the 
walls  exuded  moisture.  The  average  cellar  was  dry 
by  comparison.  "  You  will  get  your  death  of  cold!  " 
any  mother  would  cry  in  alarm  If  her  boy  were  found 
even  sitting  on  such  cold,  wet  ground.  For  it  was  a 
clammy  night  of  early  spring.  Yet,  peculiarly  enough, 
few  men  get  colds  from  this  exposure.  One  gets 
colds  from  draughts  in  overheated  rooms  much 
oftener.  Luckily,  It  was  not  raining;  It  had  been  rain- 
ing most  of  the  winter  in  the  flat  country  of  Northern 
France  and  Flanders. 

"  It  Is  very  horrible,  this  kind  of  warfare,"  said  the 
captain.     He  was  thinking  of  the  method  of  It,  rather 


258  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

than  of  the  discomforts.  *'  All  war  is  very  horrible, 
of  course."  Regular  soldiers  rarely  take  any  other 
view.     They  know  war. 

"  With  your  wounded  arm  you  might  be  back  in 
England  on  leave,"  I  suggested. 

"  Oh,  that  arm  is  all  right!  "  he  replied.  "  This  is 
what  I  am  paid  for" — which  I  had  heard  regulars 
say  before.  "  And  it  is  for  England!  "  he  added,  in 
his  quiet  way.  "  Sometimes  I  think  we  should  fight 
better  if  we  officers  could  hate  the  Germans,"  he  went 
on.  "  The  German  idea  is  that  you  must  hate  if  you 
are  going  to  fight  well.     But  we  can't  hate." 

Sound  views  he  had  about  the  war;  sounder  than  I 
have  heard  from  the  lips  of  cabinet  ministers.  For 
these  regular  officers  are  specialists  in  war. 

*'  Do  you  think  that  we  shall  starve  the  Germans 
out?" 

"  No.  We  must  win  by  fighting,"  he  replied. 
This  was  in  March,  19 15.  "  You  know,"  he  went  on, 
taking  another  tack,  "  when  one  gets  back  to  England 
out  of  this  muck  he  wants  good  linen  and  everything 
very  nice." 

"  Yes.  I've  found  the  same  after  roughing  It,"  I 
agreed.  "  One  is  most  particular  that  he  has  every 
comfort  to  which  civilisation  entitles  him." 

We  chatted  on.  Much  of  our  talk  was  soldier  shop 
talk,  which  you  will  not  care  to  hear.  Twice  we  were 
interrupted  by  an  outburst  of  firing,  and  the  captain 
hurried  out  to  ascertain  the  reason.  Some  false  alarm 
had  started  the  rifles  speaking  from  both  sides.  A 
fusillade  for  two  or  three  minutes  and  the  firing  died 
down  to  silence. 

Dawn  broke  and  it  was  time  for  me  to  go;  and 
with  daylight,  when  danger  of  a  night  surprise  was 


WITH  THE  IRISH  259 

over,  the  captain  would  have  his  sleep.  I  was  leaving 
him  to  his  mud  house  and  his  bed  on  the  wet  ground 
without  a  blanket.  It  was  more  important  to  have 
sandbags  up  for  the  breastworks  than  to  have  blan- 
kets; and  as  the  men  had  not  yet  received  theirs,  he 
had  none  himself. 

"  It's  not  fair  to  the  men,"  he  said.  "  I  don't  want 
anything  they  don't  have." 

No  better  food  and  no  better  house  and  no  warmer 
garments !  He  spoke  not  in  any  sense  of  stated  duty, 
but  in  the  affection  of  the  comradeship  of  war;  the 
affection  born  of  that  imperturbable  courage  of  his 
soldiers,  who  had  stood  a  stone  wall  of  cool  resolution 
against  German  charges  when  it  seemed  as  if  they 
must  go.  The  glamour  of  war  may  have  departed, 
but  not  the  brotherhood  of  hardship  and  dangers 
shared. 

What  had  been  a  routine  night  to  him  had  been  a 
great  night  to  me;  one  of  the  most  memorable  of 
my  life. 

"  I  was  glad  you  could  come,"  he  said,  as  I  made 
my  adieu,  quite  as  if  he  were  saying  adieu  to  a  guest 
at  home  in  England. 

Some  of  the  soldiers  called  their  cheery  good-byes; 
and  with  a  lieutenant  to  guide  me,  I  set  out  while  the 
light  was  still  dusky,  leaving  the  comforting  parapet 
to  the  rear  to  go  into  the  open,  four  hundred  yards 
from  the  Germans.  A  German,  though  he  could  not 
have  seen  us  distinctly,  must  have  noted  something 
moving.  Two  of  his  bullets  came  rather  close  before 
we  passed  out  of  his  vision  among  some  trees. 

In  a  few  minutes  I  was  again  entering  the  peasant's 
cottage  that  was  battalion  headquarters;  this  time  by 
daylight.     Its  walls  were  chipped  by  bullets  that  had 


26o    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

come  over  the  breastworks.  The  major  was  just  get- 
ting up  from  his  blankets  in  the  cellar.  By  this  time 
1  had  a  real  trench  appetite.  Not  until  after  break- 
fast did  it  occur  to  me,  with  some  surprise,  that  I  had 
not  washed  my  face. 

"  The  food  was  just  as  good,  wasn't  it?  "  remarked 
the  major.  "  We  get  quite  used  to  such  breaches  of 
convention.  Besides,  you  had  been  up  all  night,  so 
your  breakfast  might  be  called  your  after-the-theatre 
supper." 

With  him  I  went  to  see  what  the  ruins  of  Neuve 
Chapelle  looked  like  by  daylight.  The  destruction 
was  not  all  the  result  of  one  bombardment,  for  the 
British  had  been  shelling  Neuve  Chapelle  off  and  on 
all  winter.  Of  course,  there  is  the  old  earthquake 
comparison.  All  writers  have  used  It.  But  it  is 
quite  too  feeble  for  Neuve  Chapelle.  An  earthquake 
merely  shakes  down  houses.  The  shells  had  done  a 
good  deal  more  than  that.  They  had  crushed  the 
remains  of  the  houses  as  under  the  pestle  head  in  a 
mortar;  blown  walls  into  dust;  taken  bricks  from  the 
east  side  of  the  house  over  to  the  west  and  thrown 
them  back  with  another  explosion. 

Neuve  Chapelle  had  been  literally  flailed  with  the 
high  explosive  projectiles  of  the  new  British  artillery, 
which  the  British  had  to  make  after  the  war  began  to 
compete  with  what  the  Germans  already  had;  for 
poor,  lone,  wronged,  bullied  Germany  quite  unpre- 
pared —  Austria  with  her  fifty  millions  does  not 
count  —  was  fighting  on  the  defensive  against  wicked, 
aggressive  enemies  who  were  fully  prepared.  This 
explains  why  she  invaded  France  and  took  possession 
of  towns  like  Neuve  Chapelle  to  defend  her  poor,  un- 
ready people  from  the  French,  who  had  been  plotting 


WITH  THE  IRISH  261 

and  planning  "  the  day  "  when  they  would  conquer  the 
Germans. 

Bits  of  German  equipment  were  mixed  with  ruins 
of  clocks  and  family  pictures  and  household  utensils. 
I  noticed  a  bicycle  which  had  been  cut  in  two,  its  parts 
separated  by  twenty  feet;  one  wheel  was  twisted  into  a 
spool  of  wire,  the  other  simply  mashed. 

Where  was  the  man  who  had  kept  the  shop  with  a 
few  letters  of  his  name  still  visible  on  a  splintered 
bit  of  board?  Where  the  children  who  had  played  in 
the  littered  square  in  front  of  the  church,  with  its 
steeples  and  walls  piles  of  stone  that  had  crushed  the 
worshippers'  benches?  Refugees  somewhere  back  of 
the  British  lines,  working  on  the  roads  if  strong 
enough,  helping  France  any  way  they  could,  not  mur- 
muring, even  smiling,  and  praying  for  victory,  which 
would  let  them  return  to  their  homes  and  daily  duties. 
To  their  homes ! 


XVIII 

WITH   THE   GUNS 

A  war  of  explosions  —  And  machines  —  Battle-panorama  style  — 
Value  of  surprise  —  Ever  hungry  guns  —  Accurate  or  blind  and 
groping  guns  —  Demon  guns  —  Balloon  observations  —  Finding 
the  guns  —  Ingenious  concealments — "Funk  pits" — Mechanism 
—  Bookkeeping  and  trigonometry — "Cover!" — The  German 
aeroplane  —  New  howitzers  and  their  crews  —  The  general  —  A 
gun  specialist  — The  "  hell-for-leather  "  guns  —  The  "curtain  of 
fire" — In  operation  —  Spotting  the  targets  —  How  the  system 
works  —  A  chagrined  gunner  —  A  bull's  eye! — The  Germans 
retort  —  Horrible  fascination  of  war  —  A  queer  "refugee" — 
"  Besides,  they  are  women  and  children." 

It  is  a  war  of  explosions,  from  bombs  thrown  by  hand 
within  ten  yards  of  the  enemy  to  shells  thrown  as  far 
as  twenty  miles  and  mines  laid  under  the  enemy's 
trenches;  a  war  of  guns,  from  seventeen-inch  down  to 
three-inch  and  machine  guns;  a  war  of  machinery,  with 
man  still  the  pre-eminent  machine. 

Guns  mark  the  limit  of  the  danger  zone.  Their 
screaming  shells  laugh  at  the  sentries  at  the  entrances 
to  towns  and  at  cross-roads  who  demand  passes  of  all 
other  travellers.  Any  one  who  tried  to  keep  out  of 
range  of  the  guns  would  never  get  anywhere  near  the 
front.  It  is  all  a  matter  of  chance,  with  long  odds  or 
short  odds,  according  to  the  neighbourhood  you  are 
in.  If  shells  come,  they  come  without  warning  and 
without  ceremony.  Nobody  is  afraid  of  shells  and 
everybody  is  —  at  least,  I  am. 

"Gawd I  Wat  a  'ole!"  remarks  Mr.  Thomas 
262 


WITH  THE  GUNS  263 

Atkins  casually,  at  sight  of  an  excavation  in  the  earth 
made  by  a  thousand-pound  projectile. 

It  is  only  eighteen  years  ago  that,  at  the  battle  of 
Domoko  in  the  Greco-Turkish  war,  I  saw  half  a  dozen 
Turkish  batteries  swing  out  on  the  plain  of  Thessaly, 
limber  up  in  the  open  and  discharge  salvos  with  black 
powder,  in  the  good,  old,  battle-panorama  style.  One 
battery  of  modern  field  guns  unseen  would  wipe  out 
the  lot  in  five  minutes.  Only  ten  years  ago,  at  the 
battle  of  Liao-yang,  as  I  watched  a  cloud  of  shrapnel 
smoke  sending  down  steel  showers  over  the  little  hill 
of  Manjanyama,  which  sent  up  showers  of  earth  from 
shells  burst  by  impact  on  the  ground,  a  Japanese  mili- 
tary attache  remarked: 

"  There  you  have  a  prophecy  of  what  a  European 
war  will  be  like  I  " 

He  was  right.  He  knew  his  business  as  a  military 
attache.  The  voices  of  the  gims  along  the  front  seem 
never  silent.  In  some  direction  they  are  always  firing. 
When  one  night  the  reports  from  a  certain  quarter 
seemed  rather  heavy,  I  asked  the  reason  the  next  day. 

"  No,  not  very  heavy.  No  attack,"  a  division  staff 
officer  explained.  "  The  Bodies  had  been  building  a 
redoubt  and  we  turned  on  some  h.  e.  s." —  meaning 
high  explosive  shells. 

Night  after  night,  under  cover  of  darkness,  the  Ger- 
mans had  been  labouring  on  that  redoubt,  thinking 
that  they  were  unobserved.  They  had  kept  extremely 
quiet,  too,  slipping  their  spades  into  the  earth  softly 
and  hammering  a  nail  ever  so  lightly;  and,  of  course, 
the  redoubt  was  placed  behind  a  screen  of  foliage  which 
hid  it  from  the  view  of  the  British  trenches.  Such  is 
the  hide-and-seek  character  of  modern  war.  What 
the  German  builders  did  not  know  was  that  a  British 


264    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

aeroplane  had  been  watching  them  day  by  day  and 
that  the  spot  was  nicely  registered  on  a  British  gun- 
ner's map.  On  this  map  it  was  a  certain  numbered 
point.  Press  a  button,  as  it  were,  and  you  ring  the 
bell  with  a  shell  at  that  point.  The  gunners  waited 
till  the  house  of  cards  was  up  before  knocking  it  to 
pieces. 

Surprise  is  the  thing  with  the  guns.  A  town  may 
go  for  weeks  without  getting  a  single  shell.  Then 
it  may  get  a  score  in  ten  minutes;  or  it  may  be  shelled 
regularly  every  day  for  weeks.  "  They  are  shelling 
X  again,"  or,  "  They  have  been  leaving  Z  alone  for 
a  long  time,"  is  a  part  of  the  gossip  up  and  down  the 
line.  Towns  are  proud  of  having  escaped  altogether 
and  proud  of  the  number  and  size  of  the  shells  re- 
ceived. 

"Did  you  get  any?"  I  asked  the  division  staff 
officer,  who  had  told  me  about  the  session  the  six-inch 
howitzers  had  enjoyed.  A  common  question  that,  at 
the  front,  "  Did  you  get  any?  "  (meaning  Germans). 
A  practical  question,  too.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  form  of  play  or  any  bit  of  sensational  fielding; 
only  with  the  score,  with  results,  with  casualties. 

"  Yes,  quite  a  number,"  said  the  officer.  "  Our 
observer  saw  them  lying  about." 

The  guns  are  watching  for  targets  at  all  hours  — 
the  ever  hungry,  ever  ready,  murderous,  cunning, 
quick,  scientifically  calculating,  marvellously  accurate, 
and  also  the  guessing,  wondering,  blind,  groping,  help- 
less, guns,  which  toss  their  steel  messengers  over 
streams,  woodlands,  and  towns,  searching  for  their 
unseen  prey  in  a  wide  landscape. 

Accurate  and  murderous  they  seem  when  you  drop 
low  behind  a  trench  wall  or  huddle  in  a  dugout  as  you 


WITH  THE  GUNS  265 

hear  an  approaching  scream,  and  the  earth  trembles, 
the  air  is  wracked  by  a  concussion,  and  the  cry  of  a 
man  a  few  yards  away  tells  of  a  hit.  Very  accurate 
when  still  others,  sent  from  muzzles  six  or  seven  thou- 
sand yards  away,  fall  in  that  same  line  of  trench! 
Ver}'  accurate  when,  before  an  infantry  attack,  with 
bursts  of  shrapnel  bullets  they  cut  to  bits  the  barbed- 
wire  entanglements  in  front  of  a  trench !  The  povrer 
of  chaos  that  they  seem  to  possess  when  the  fighting- 
trench  and  the  dugouts  and  all  the  human  warrens 
which  protect  the  defenders  are  beaten  as  flour  is 
kneaded! 

Blind  and  groping  they  seem  when  a  dozen  shells 
fall  harmlessly  in  a  field;  when  they  send  their  missiles 
toward  objects  which  may  not  be  worth  shooting  at; 
when  no  one  sees  where  the  shells  hit  and  the  amount 
of  damage  they  have  done  is  guesswork;  and  helpless 
without  the  infantry  to  protect  them,  the  aeroplanes 
and  the  observers  to  see  few  them. 

One  thinks  of  them  as  demons  with  subtle  intelli- 
gence and  long  reach,  their  gigantic  fists  striking  here 
and  there  at  will,  without  a  visible  arm  behind  the 
blow.  An  army  guards  against  the  blows  of  an  en- 
emy's demons  with  every  kind  of  cover,  every  kind  of 
deception,  with  all  resources  of  scientific  ingenuity  and 
invention;  and  an  army  guards  its  own  demons  in 
their  lairs  as  preciously  as  if  they  were  made  of  some 
delicate  substance  which  would  go  up  in  smoke  at  a 
glance  from  the  enemy's  eye,  instead  of  having  bar- 
rels of  the  strongest  steel  that  can  be  forged. 

Your  personal  feeling  for  the  demons  on  your  side 
Is  in  ratio  to  the  amount  of  hell  sent  by  the  enemy's 
which  you  have  tasted.  After  you  have  been  scared 
stiff,  while  pretending  that  you  were  not,  by  sharing 


256  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

with  Mr.  Atkins  an  accurate  bombardment  of  a  trench 
and  are  convinced  that  the  next  shell  is  bound  to  get 
you,  you  fall  into  the  attitude  of  the  army.  You  want 
to  pat  the  demon  on  the  back  and  say,  "  Nice  old 
demon!  "  and  watch  him  toss  a  shell  three  or  four 
miles  into  the  German  lines  from  the  end  of  his  fiery 
tongue.  Indeed,  nothing  so  quickly  develops  interest 
in  the  British  guns  as  having  the  German  gunners  take 
too  much  personal  interest  in  you. 

You  must  have  some  one  to  show  you  the  way  or 
you  would  not  find  any  guns.  A  man  with  a  dog 
trained  to  hunt  guns  might  spend  a  week  on  the  gun- 
position  area  covering  ten  miles  of  the  front  and  not 
locate  half  the  guns.  He  might  miss  "  Grand- 
mother "  and  "  Sister  "  and  "  Betsy  "  and  "  Mike  " 
and  even  "  Mister  Archibald,"  who  is  the  only  one 
who  does  not  altogether  try  to  avoid  publicity. 

When  an  attack  or  an  artillery  bombardment  is  on 
and  you  go  to  as  high  ground  as  possible  for  a  bird's- 
eye  view  of  battle,  all  you  see  is  the  explosion  of  the 
shells;  never  anything  of  the  guns  which  are  firing. 
In  the  distance  over  the  German  lines  and  in  the  fore- 
ground over  the  British  lines  is  a  balloon,  shaped  like 
a  caterpillar  with  folded  wings  —  a  chrysalis  of  a 
caterpillar.  Tugging  at  its  moorings,  it  turns  this 
way  and  that  with  the  breeze.  The  speck  directly 
beneath  it  through  the  glasses  becomes  an  ordinary 
balloon  basket  and  other  specks  attached  to  a  guy  rope 
play  the  part  of  the  tail  of  a  kite,  helping  to  steady 
the  type  of  balloon  which  has  taken  the  place  of  the 
old  spherical  type  for  observation. 

Any  one  who  has  been  up  in  a  captive  spherical  bal- 
loon knows  how  difficult  it  is  to  keep  his  glasses 
focussed  on  any  object,  because  of  the  jerking  and 


WITH  THE  GUNS  267 

pitching  and  trembling  due  to  the  envelope's  response 
to  air-movements.  The  new  type  partly  overcomes 
this  drawback.  To  shrapnel  their  thin  envelope  is 
as  vulnerable  as  a  paper  drum-head  to  a  knife;  but  I 
have  seen  them  remain  up  defiantly  when  shells  were 
bursting  within  three  or  four  hundred  yards,  which 
their  commanders  seemed  to  understand  was  the  limit 
of  the  German  battery's  reach.  Again,  I  have  seen  a 
shrapnel  burst  alongside  within  range ;  and  five  minutes 
later  the  balloon  was  down  and  out  of  sight.  No  bal- 
loon observer  hopes  to  see  the  enemy's  guns.  He  is 
watching  for  shell-bursts,  in  order  to  inform  the  guns 
of  his  side  whether  or  not  they  are  on  the  target. 

Riding  along  the  roads  at  the  front,  one  may  know 
that  there  is  a  battery  a  stone's  throw  away  only  when 
a  blast  from  a  hidden  gun-muzzle  warns  him  of  its 
presence.  It  was  wonderful  to  me  that  the  artillery 
general  who  took  me  gun-seeing  knew  where  his  own 
guns  were,  let  alone  the  enemy's.  I  imagine  that  he 
could  return  to  a  field  and  locate  a  four-leafed  clover 
that  he  had  seen  on  a  previous  stroll.  His  dogs  of 
war  had  become  foxes  of  war,  burrowing  in  places 
which  wise,  old  father  foxes  knew  were  safest  from 
detection.  Hereafter,  I  shall  not  be  surprised  to  see 
a  muzzle  poking  its  head  out  of  an  oven,  or  from  un- 
der grandfather's  chair  or  a  farm  wagon,  or  up  a  tree, 
or  in  a  garret.  Think  of  the  last  place  in  the  world 
for  emplacing  a  gun  and  one  may  be  there;  think  of 
the  most  likely  place  and  one  may  be  there. 

You  might  be  walking  across  the  fields  and  minded 
to  go  through  a  hedge  and  bum.p  into  a  black  ring  of 
steel  with  a  gun's  crew  grinning  behind  it.  They 
would  grin  because  you  had  given  proof  of  how  well 
their  gun  was  concealed.     But  they  wouldn't  grin  as 


268  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

much  as  they  would  if  they  saw  the  enemy  plunking 
shells  into  another  hedge  two  hundred  yards  distant, 
where  the  German  aeroplane  observer  thought  he  had 
seen  a  battery  and  had  not. 

"  I'll  show  you  a  big  one,  first!  "  said  the  general. 

We  left  the  car  at  a  cottage  and  walked  along  a 
lane.  I  looked  all  about  the  premises  and  could  se 
only  some  artillerymen.  An  officer  led  me  up  to  a 
gun-breech;  at  least,  I  know  a  gun-breech  when  it  k 
one  foot  from  my  nose  and  a  soldier  has  removed  its 
covering.  But  I  shall  not  tell  how  that  gun  was  con- 
cealed; the  method  was  so  audacious  that  it  was  en- 
tirely successful.  The  Germans  would  like  to  know 
and  we  don't  want  them  to  know.  A  pencil-point  on 
their  map  for  identification,  and  they  would  send  a 
whirlwind  of  shells  at  that  gun. 

And  then? 

Would  the  gun  try  to  fire  back?  No.  Its  gun- 
ners probably  would  not  know  the  location  of  any  of 
the  German  batteries  which  had  concentrated  on  their 
treasure.  They  would  desert  the  gun.  If  they  did 
not,  they  ought  to  be  court-martialed  for  needlessly 
risking  the  precious  lives  of  trained  men.  They 
would  make  for  the  "  funk  pits,"  just  as  the  gunners 
of  any  other  power  would. 

The  chances  are  that  the  gun  Itself  would  not  be 
hit  bodily  by  a  shell.  Fragments  might  strike  it  with- 
out causing  more  than  an  abrasion;  for  big  guns  have 
pretty  thick  cuticle.  When  the  storm  was  over,  the 
gunners  would  move  the  gun  to  another  hiding-place; 
which  would  mean  a  good  deal  of  work  on  account  of 
Its  size. 

It  is  the  inability  of  gun  to  see  gun,  and  even  when 
seen  to  knock  out  gun,  which  has  put  an  end  to  the  so- 


WITH  THE  GUNS  269 

called  artillery  duel  of  pitched-battle  days,  when  can- 
non walloped  cannon  to  keep  cannon  from  walloping 
the  Infantry.  Now  when  there  is  an  action,  though 
guns  still  go  after  guns  if  they  know  where  they  are, 
most  of  the  firing  is  done  against  trenches  and  to  sup- 
port trenches  and  infantry  works,  or  with  a  view  to 
demoralising  the  infantry.  Concentration  of  artillery 
fire  will  demolish  an  enemy's  trench  and  let  your  in- 
fantry take  possession  of  the  wreckage  remaining;  but 
then  the  enemy's  artillery  concentrates  on  your  in- 
fantry and  frequently  makes  their  new  habitation  un- 
tenable. 

Noiselessly  except  for  a  little  click,  with  chickens 
clucking  in  a  field  near  by,  the  big  breech-block  which 
held  the  shell  fast,  sending  all  the  power  of  the  explo- 
sion out  of  the  muzzle,  was  swung  back  and  one 
looked  through  the  shining  tube  of  steel,  with  its  rifling 
which  caught  the  driving  band  and  gave  the  shell  its 
rotation  and  accuracy  In  Its  long  journey,  which  would 
close  when,  descending  at  the  end  of  its  parabola,  its 
nose  struck  brick  or  earth  or  pavement  and  it  ex- 
ploded. 

Wheels  that  lift  and  depress  and  swing  the  muzzle, 
and  gadgets  with  figures  on  them,  and  other  scales 
which  play  between  the  map  and  the  gadgets,  and 
atmospheric  pressure  and  wind  variation,  all  worked 
out  with  the  same  precision  under  a  French  hedge  as 
on  board  a  battleship  where  the  gun-mounting  is  fast 
to  massive  ribs  of  steel  —  it  seemed  a  matter  of  book- 
keeping and  trigonometry  rather  than  war. 

If  a  shell  from  this  gun  were  to  hit  at  the  corner  of 
Wall  Street  and  Broadway  at  the  noon  hour,  it  would 
probably  kill  and  wound  a  hundred  men.  If  it  went 
into  the  dugout  of  a  support  trench  it  would  get  every- 


270    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

body  there;  but  if  It  went  ten  yards  beyond  the  trench 
into  the  open  field  it  would  probably  get  nobody. 

"  Cover!  "  some  one  exclaimed,  while  we  were  look- 
ing at  the  gun ;  and  everybody  promptly  got  under  the 
branches  of  a  tree  or  a  shed.  A  German  aeroplane 
was  cruising  in  our  direction.  If  the  aviator  saw  a 
group  of  men  standing  about,  he  might  draw  conclu- 
sions and  pass  the  wireless  word  to  send  in  some  shells 
at  whatever  number  on  the  German  gunners'  map  was 
ours. 

These  gunners  loved  their  gun;  loved  it  for  the 
power  which  it  could  put  into  a  blow  under  their 
trained  hands;  loved  it  for  the  care  and  the  labour  it 
had  meant  for  them.  It  is  the  way  of  gunners  to  love 
their  gun,  or  they  would  not  be  good  gunners.  Of  all 
the  guns  I  saw  that  day,  I  think  that  two  big  howitzers 
meant  the  most  to  their  masters.  These  had  just  ar- 
rived. They  had  been  set  up  only  two  days.  They 
had  not  yet  fired  against  the  enemy.  For  many 
months  the  gunners  had  drilled  in  England,  and  had 
tried  their  "  eight-inch  hows  "  out  on  the  target  range, 
and  brought  them  across  the  Channel,  and  nursed 
them  along  the  French  roads,  and  finally  set  them  up 
in  their  hidden  lair.  Now  they  waited  for  observers 
to  assist  them  in  registration. 

When  the  general  approached  there  was  a  call  to 
turn  out  the  guard;  but  he  stopped  that.  At  the  front 
there  is  an  end  of  the  ceremoniousness  of  the  barracks. 
Military  formality  disappears.  Discipline,  as  well  as 
other  things,  is  simpler  and  more  real.  The  men 
went  on  with  their  recess,  playing  football  in  a  nearby 
field. 

The  officers  possibly  were  a  trifle  diffident  and  un- 
certain; they  had  not  yet  the  veterans'  manner.     It 


WITH  THE  GUNS  271 

was  clear  that  they  had  done  everything  required  by 
the  text-book  of  theory  —  the  latest,  up-to-date  text- 
book of  experience  at  the  front  as  taught  in  England. 
When  they  showed  us  how  they  had  stored  their  stock 
of  shells  to  be  safe  from  a  shot  by  the  enemy,  one  re- 
marked that  the  method  was  according  to  the  latest 
directions,  though  there  was  some  difference  among 
mihtary  experts  on  the  subject.  When  there  is  a  dif- 
ference, what  is  the  beginner  to  do?  An  old  hand, 
of  course,  does  it  his  way  until  an  order  makes  him  do 
otherwise. 

The  general  had  a  suggestion  about  the  application 
of  the  method.  He  had  little  to  say,  the  general,  and 
it  all  was  in  the  spirit  of  comradeship  and  much  to  the 
point.  Few  things  escaped  his  observation.  It  seems 
fairly  true  that  one  who  knows  any  branch  of  human 
endeavour  well  makes  his  work  appear  easy.  Once  a 
gunner  always  a  gunner  is  characteristic  of  all  armies. 
The  general  had  spent  his  life  with  guns.  He  was  a 
specialist  visiting  his  plant;  one  of  the  staff  specialists 
responsible  to  a  corps  commander  for  the  work  of  the 
guns  on  a  certain  section  of  map,  for  accuracy  and 
promptness  of  fire  when  It  was  needed  in  the  com- 
mander's plans. 

If  the  newcomers  put  their  shells  into  the  target  on 
their  first  trial  they  had  qualified;  and  sometimes  new- 
comers shoot  quite  as  well  as  veterans,  which  is  a  sur- 
prise to  both  and  the  best  kind  of  news  for  the  gen- 
eral who  is  in  charge  of  an  expanding  plant.  New 
guns  are  just  beginning  to  come;  England  is  only  be- 
ginning to  make  war.  It  takes  time  to  make  a  gun 
and  time  to  train  men  to  fire  it.  The  war  will  be  won 
by  gunners  and  infantry  that  knew  nothing  of  guns  or 
drill  when  the  war  began. 


27-2    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"  Here  are  some  who  have  been  In  France  from  the 
first,"  said  the  general,  when  we  came  to  a  battery  of 
field-guns;  of  the  eighteen-pounders,  the  fellows  you 
see  behind  the  galloping  horses,  the  hell-for-leather 
guns,  the  guns  which  bring  the  gleam  of  affection  into 
the  eyes  of  men  who  think  of  pursuits  and  covering 
retreats  and  the  pitched-battle  conditions,  before 
armies  settled  down  In  trenches  and  growled  and 
hissed  at  each  other  day  after  day  and  brought  up 
guns  of  calibres  which  we  associate  with  battleships 
and  coast  fortifications. 

These  are  called  "  light  stuff  "  and  "  whiz-bangs  " 
now.  In  army  parlance.  They  throw  an  eighteen- 
pound  shell  which  carries  three  hundred  bullets,  and 
so  fast  that  one  chases  another  through  the  air. 
There  has  been  so  much  talk  about  the  need  of  heavy 
guns  that  you  might  think  eighteen-pounders  were  too 
small  for  consideration.  Were  the  German  line  bro- 
ken, these  are  the  ones  which  could  follow  as  rapidly 
as  the  engineers  could  lay  bridges  for  them  to  cross. 

They  are  the  boys  who  weave  the  "  curtain  of  fire  " 
which  you  read  about  In  the  French  ofliclal  bulletins  as 
checking  an  infantry  charge;  which  demolish  the 
barbed-wire  entanglements  to  let  an  Infantry  charge 
get  Into  a  trench.  If  a  general  wants  a  shower  of  bul- 
lets over  any  part  of  the  German  line  he  has  only  to 
call  up  the  eighteen-pounders  and  it  is  sent  as  promptly 
as  the  pressure  of  a  button  brings  a  pitcher  of  iced 
water  to  a  room  In  a  first-class  hotel.  A  veteran  eight- 
een-pounder  crew  In  action  Is  a  poem  In  precision  and 
speed  of  movement.  The  gun  Itself  seems  to  possess 
intelligence. 

There  was  the  finesse  of  gunners'  craft,  worthy  of 


WITH  THE  GUNS  273 

veterans,  In  the  way  that  these  eighteen-pounders  were 
concealed.  The  Germans  had  put  some  shells  in  the 
neighbourhood,  but  without  fooling  the  old  hands. 
They  did  not  change  the  location  of  their  battery,  and 
their  judgment  that  the  shots  which  came  near  were 
chance  shots  fired  at  another  object  was  justified. 
Particularly  I  should  hke  to  mention  their  *'  funk  pits," 
which  kept  them  safe  from  the  heaviest  shells.  For 
the  veterans  knew  how  to  take  care  of  themselves; 
they  had  an  eye  to  the  protection  which  comes  of  ex- 
perience with  German  high  explosives.  Their  expert 
knowledge  of  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  their  business  had 
been  fought  into  them  for  eleven  months. 

Another  field  batter}^,  also,  I  have  in  mind,  placed 
in  an  orchard.  Which  orchard  of  all  the  thousands  of 
orchards  along  the  British  front  the  German  Staff  may 
guess,  if  they  choose.  If  German  guns  fired  at  all  the 
orchards,  one  by  one,  they  might  locate  it  —  and  then 
again  they  might  not.  Besides,  this  is  a  peculiar  sort 
of  orchard. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  gunners  to  be  neat  and  to 
have  an  eye  for  the  comeliness  of  things.  These  men 
had  a  lawn  and  a  garden  and  tables  and  chairs.  If 
you  are  famihar  with  the  tidiness  of  a  retired  New 
England  sailor,  who  regards  his  porch  as  a  quarter- 
deck and  sallies  forth  to  remove  each  descending 
autumn  leaf  from  the  grass,  then  you  know  how  scru- 
pulous they  were  about  litter. 

For  weeks  they  had  been  In  the  same  position,  un- 
seen by  German  aeroplanes.  They  had  daily  baths; 
they  did  their  week's  washing,  taking  care  not  to  hang 
It  where  It  would  be  visible  from  the  sky.  Every 
day  they  received  London  papers  and  letters  from 


274    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

home.  When  they  were  needed  to  help  in  making 
war,  all  they  had  to  do  was  to  slip  a  shell  in  the  breech 
and  send  it  with  their  compliments  to  the  Germans. 
They  were  camping  out  at  His  Majesty's  expense  in 
the  pleasant  land  of  France  in  the  joyous  summer 
time;  and  on  the  roof  of  sods  over  their  guns  were 
pots  of  flowers,  undisturbed  by  blasts  from  the  gun- 
muzzles. 

It  was  when  leaving  another  battery  that,  out  of  the 
tail  of  my  eye,  I  caught  a  lurid  flash  through  a  hedge, 
followed  by  the  sharp,  ear-piercing  crack  that  comes 
from  being  in  line  with  a  gun-muzzle  when  a  shot  is 
fired.  We  followed  a  path  which  took  us  to  the  rear 
of  the  report,  where,  through  undergrowth,  we 
stepped  among  the  busy  groups  around  the  breeches  of 
some  guns  of  one  of  the  larger  calibres. 

An  order  for  some  "  heavy  stuff  "  at  a  certain  point 
on  the  map  was  being  filled.  Sturdy  men  were  moving 
in  a  pantomime  under  the  shade  of  a  willow  tree,  each 
doing  exactly  his  part  in  a  process  that  seemed  as 
simple  as  opening  a  cupboard  door,  slipping  in  a  pack- 
age of  concentrated  destruction,  and  closing  the  door 
again.  All  that  detail  of  range-finding  and  mathe- 
matical adjustment  of  aim  at  the  unseen  target  which 
takes  so  long  to  explain  was  applied  as  automatically 
as  an  adding-machine  adds  up  a  column  of  figures. 
Everybody  was  as  practice-perfect  in  his  part  as  per- 
formers who  have  made  hundreds  of  appearances  in 
the  same  act  on  the  stage. 

All  ready,  the  word  given,  a  crack,  and  through  the 
air  in  front  you  saw  a  wingless,  black  object  rising  in 
a  curve  against  the  soft  blue  sky,  which  it  seemed  to 
sweep  with  a  sound  something  like  the  escape  of  water 
through  a  break  in  the  garden  hose,  multiplied  by 


WITH  THE  GUNS  275 

ten,  rising  to  its  zenith  and  then  descending  till  it 
passed  out  of  sight  behind  a  green  bank  of  foliage  on 
the  horizon. 

After  the  scream  had  been  lost  to  the  ear  you  heard 
the  faint,  thudding  boom  of  an  explosion  from  the 
burst  of  that  conical  piece  of  steel  which  you  had  seen 
slipped  into  the  breech.  This  was  the  gunners'  part 
in  chess-board  war,  where  the  moves  are  made  over 
signal  wires,  while  the  infantry  endure  the  explosions 
in  their  trenches  and  fight  in  their  charges  in  the 
traverses  of  the  trenches  at  as  close  quarters  as  in  the 
days  of  the  cave-dwellers. 

There  was  no  stopping  work  when  the  general  came, 
of  course.  It  would  have  been  the  same  had  Lord 
Kitchener  been  present.  The  battery  commander  ex- 
pressed his  regret  that  he  could  not  show  me  his  guns 
without  any  sense  of  irony;  meaning  that  he  was  sorry 
he  was  too  busy  to  tell  me  more  about  his  battery.  In 
about  the  time  that  it  took  a  telegraph  key  to  click 
after  each  one  of  those  distant  bursts,  he  knew 
whether  or  not  the  shot  was  on  the  target  and  what 
v^ariation  of  degree  to  make  in  the  next  if  it  were  not; 
or  if  the  word  came  to  shift  the  point  of  aim  a  little, 
when  you  are  trying  to  shake  the  enemy  up  here  and 
there  along  a  certain  length  of  trench. 

At  another  wire-end  some  one  was  spotting  the 
bursts.  Perhaps  he  was  in  the  kind  of  place  where  I 
once  found  an  observer,  who  was  sitting  upon  a  cushion 
looking  out  through  a  chink  broken  in  a  wall,  with  a 
signal  corps  operator  near  by.  It  was  a  small  chink, 
just  large  enough  to  allow  the  leas  of  a  pair  of  glasses 
or  a  telescope  a  range  of  vision;  and  even  then  I  was 
given  certain  warnings  before  the  cover  over  the 
chink  was  removed,  though  there  could  not  have  been 


276    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

any  German  In  uniform  nearer  than  four  thousand 
yards.  But  there  may  be  spies  within  your  own  lines, 
looking  for  such  holes. 

From  this  post  I  could  make  out  the  German  and 
the  British  trenches  in  muddy  white  lines  of  sand- 
bags running  snake-like  across  the  fields,  and  the  officer 
identified  points  on  the  map  to  me.  Every  tree  and 
hedge  and  ditch  in  the  panorama  were  graven  on  his 
mind;  all  had  language  for  him.  His  work  was  en- 
grossing. It  had  risk,  too;  there  was  no  telling  when 
a  shell  might  lift  him  off  the  cushion  and  provide  a 
hole  for  his  remains.  If  he  were  shelled,  the  observer 
would  go  to  a  funk  pit,  as  the  gunners  do,  until  the 
storm  had  passed ;  and  then  he  would  move  on  with  his 
cushion  and  his  telegraph  instrument  and  make  a  hole 
In  another  wall,  if  he  did  not  find  a  tree  or  some  other 
eminence  which  suited  his  taste  better.  Meanwhile, 
he  was  not  the  only  observer  in  that  section.  There 
were  others  nearer  the  trenches,  perhaps  actually  in  the 
trenches.  The  two  armies,  seeming  chained  to  their 
trenches,  are  set  with  veiled  eyes  at  the  end  of  wires; 
veiled  eyes  trying  to  locate  the  other's  eyes,  the  other's 
guns  and  troops,  and  the  least  movement  which  indi- 
cates any  attempt  to  gain  an  advantage. 

"  Gunnery  Is  navigation,  dead  reckoning,  with  the 
spotting  observer  the  sun  by  which  you  correct  your 
reckoning,"  said  one  of  the  artillery  officers. 

Firing  enough  one  had  seen  —  landscape  bathed  In 
smoke  and  dust  and  reverberating  with  explosions;  but 
all  as  a  spectacle  from  the  orchestra  seat,  not  too  close 
at  hand  for  comfort.  This  time  I  was  to  see  the  guns 
fire  and  then  I  was  to  see  the  results  of  the  firing  In  de- 
tail. Both  can  rarely  be  seen  at  the  same  time.  It 
was  not  show  firing,  this  that  we  watched  from  an  ob- 


WITH  THE  GUNS  277 

serving  station,  but  part  of  the  day's  work  for  the  guns 
and  the  general.  First,  the  map;  "  here  and  there," 
as  an  officer's  finger  pointed;  and  then  one  looked 
across  the  fields,  green  and  brown  and  golden  with 
summer  crops. 

Item  I.  The  Germans  were  fortifying  a  certain 
point  on  a  certain  farm.  We  were  gomg  to  put  some 
"  heavy  stuff  "  in  there  and  some  "  light  stuff,"  too. 
The  burst  of  our  shells  could  be  located  in  relation  to  a 
certain  tree. 

Item  11.  Our  planes  thought  that  the  Germans  had 
a  wireless  station  in  a  certain  building.  "  Heavy 
stuff  "  exclusively  for  this. 

No  enemy's  wireless  station  ought  to  be  enjoying 
serene  summer  weather  without  interruption;  and  no 
German  working  party  ought  to  be  allowed  to  build 
redoubts  within  range  of  our  guns  without  a  break 
in  the  monotony  of  their  drudgery. 

Six  lyddites  were  the  order  for  the  wireless  station; 
six  high  explosives  which  burst  on  contact  and  make 
a  hole  in  the  earth  large  enough  for  a  grave  for  the 
Kaiser  and  all  his  field  marshals.  Frequently,  not 
only  the  number  of  shells  to  be  fired,  but  also  the  in- 
tervals between  them  is  given  by  the  artillery  com- 
mander, as  a  part  of  his  plan  in  his  understanding  of 
the  object  to  be  accomplished;  and  it  is  quite  clear 
that  the  system  is  the  same  with  the  Germans. 

One  side  no  sooner  develops  an  idea  than  the  other 
adopts  it.  By  the  effect  of  the  enemy's  shells  you 
judge  what  the  effect  of  yours  must  be.  Months  of 
experience  have  done  away  with  all  theory  and  prac- 
tice has  become  much  the  same  with  either  adversary. 
For  example,  let  a  German  or  a  British  airman  be 
winged  by  anti-aircraft  gun-fire  and  the  enemy's  guns 


278  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Instantly  loosen  up  on  the  point  over  his  own  lines, 
if  he  regains  them,  where  he  is  seen  to  fall.  All  the 
soldiers  in  the  neighbourhood  are  expected  to  run  to 
his  assistance;  and,  at  any  rate,  you  may  kill  a  trained 
aviator,  whose  life  is  a  valuable  asset  on  one  side  of 
the  ledger  and  whose  death  an  asset  on  the  other. 
There  is  no  sentiment  left  in  war,  you  see.  It  is  all 
killing  and  avoiding  being  killed. 

By  the  scream  of  a  shell  the  practised  ear  of  the 
artilleryman  can  tell  whether  it  comes  from  a  gun 
with  a  low  trajectory  or  from  a  howitzer,  whose  pro- 
jectile rises  higher  and  falls  at  a  sharper  angle  which 
enables  it  to  enter  the  trenches;  and  he  can  even  tell 
approximately  the  calibre. 

A  scream  sweeping  past  from  our  rear,  and  we  knew 
that  this  was  for  the  redoubt,  as  that  was  to  have  the 
first  turn.  A  volume  of  dust  and  smoke  breaking 
from  the  earth  short  of  the  redoubt;  a  second's  delay 
of  hearing  the  engine  whistle  after  the  burst  of  steam 
in  the  distance  on  a  winter  day,  and  then  the  sound 
of  the  burst.  The  next  was  over.  With  the  third 
the  "  heavy  stuff  "  ought  to  be  right  on. 

But  don't  forget  that  there  was  also  an  order  for 
some  "  light  stuff,"  identified  as  shrapnel  by  its  soft, 
nimbus-like  puff  which  was  scattering  bullets  as  if  giv- 
ing chase  to  that  working  party  as  it  hastened  to  cover. 
There  you  had  the  ugly  method  of  this  modern  artil- 
lery fire :  death  shot  downward  from  the  air  and  leap- 
ing up  out  of  the  earth.  Unhappily,  the  third  was 
not  on,  nor  the  fourth  —  not  exactly  on.  Exactly  on 
is  the  way  the  British  gunners  like  to  fill  an  order 
f.o.b.,  express  charges  prepaid,  for  the  Germans. 

Ten  years  ago  it  would  have  seemed  good  shooting. 
It  was  not  very  good  in  the  twelfth  month  of  the  war ; 


WITH  THE  GUNS  279 

for  war  beats  the  target  range  in  developing  accuracy. 
At  five  or  six  or  seven  or  eight  thousand  yards'  range 
the  shells  were  bursting  thirty  or  forty  yards  away 
from  where  they  should. 

No,  not  very  good;  the  general  murmured  as  much. 
He  did  not  need  to  say  so  aloud  to  the  artillery  offi- 
cer responsible  for  the  shooting,  who  was  in  touch 
with  his  batteries  by  wire.  The  officer  knew  it.  He 
was  the  high-strung,  ambitious  sort.  You  had  better 
not  become  a  gunner  unless  you  are.  Any  good- 
enough  temperament  is  ruled  off  wasting  munitions. 
Red  was  creeping  through  the  tan  from  his  throat  to 
the  roots  of  his  hair.  To  have  this  happen  in  the 
presence  of  that  quiet-mannered  general,  after  all  his 
efforts  to  remedy  the  error  in  those  guns ! 

But  the  general  was  quite  human.  He  was  not  the 
"  strafing  "  kind. 

"  I  know  those  guns  have  an  error!  "  he  said,  as  he 
put  his  hand  on  the  officer's  arm.  That  was  all;  but 
that  was  a  good  deal  to  the  officer.  Evidently,  the 
general  not  only  knew  guns ;  he  knew  men.  The  offi- 
cer had  suffered  admonit'on  enough  from  his  own  in- 
jured pride. 

Besides,  what  we  did  to  the  supposed  wireless  sta- 
tion ought  to  keep  any  general  from  being  down- 
hearted. Neither  guns,  nor  the  powder  v/hich  sent 
the  big  shells  on  their  errand,  nor  the  calculations  of 
the  gunner,  nor  the  adjustment  of  the  gadgets,  had 
any  error.  With  the  first  shot,  a  great  burst  of  the 
black  smoke  of  deadly  lyddite  rose  from  the  target. 

"Right  on!" 

And  again  and  again  —  right  on ! 

The  ugly,  spreading,  low-hanging,  dense  cloud  was 
renewed  from  its  heart  by  successive  bursts  in  the  same 


28o    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

place.  If  the  aeroplane's  conclusions  were  right,  that 
wireless  station  must  be  very  much  wireless,  now. 
The  only  safe  discount  for  the  life  insurance  of  the 
operators  was  one  hundred  per  cent. 

"Here,  they  are  firing  more  than  six!"  said  the 
general.  "  It's  always  hard  to  hold  gunners  down 
when  they  are  on  the  target  like  that." 

He  spoke  as  if  it  would  have  been  difficult  for  him 
to  resist  the  temptation  himself.  The  Germans  got 
two  extra  for  full  measure.  Perhaps  those  two  were 
waste;  perhaps  the  first  two  had  been  enough.  Con- 
servation of  shells  has  become  a  first  principle  of  the 
artillerists'  duty.  The  number  fired  by  either  side  in 
the  course  of  the  routine  of  an  average  so-called 
peaceful  day  is  surprising.  Economy  would  be  easier 
if  it  were  harder  to  slip  a  shell  into  a  gun-breech.  The 
men  in  the  trenches  are  always  calling  for  shells. 
They  want  a  tree  or  a  house  which  is  the  hiding-place 
of  a  sniper  knocked  down.  The  men  at  the  guns 
would  be  glad  to  accommodate  them,  but  the  say  as 
to  that  is  with  commanders  who  know  the  situation. 

"  The  Boches  will  be  coming  back  at  us  soon,  you 
will  see !  "  said  one  of  the  officers  at  our  observation 
post.  "  They  always  do.  The  other  day  they  chose 
this  particular  spot  for  their  target" — which  was  a 
good  reason  why  they  would  not  this  time,  an  optimist 
thought. 

Let  either  side  start  a  bombardment  and  the  other 
responds.  There  is  a  you-hit-me-and-I'll-hlt-you  char- 
acter to  siege  warfare.  Gun-fire  provokes  gun-fire. 
Neither  adversary  stays  quiet  under  a  blow.  It  was 
not  long  before  we  heard  the  whish  of  German  shells 
passing  some  distance  away. 

They  say  the  sport  is  out  of  war.     Perhaps,  but 


WITH  THE  GUNS  281 

not  Its  enthralling  and  horrible  fascination.  Knowing 
what  the  target  is,  knowing  the  object  of  the  fire,  hear- 
ing the  scream  of  the  projectile  on  the  way  and  watch- 
ing to  see  if  it  is  to  be  a  hit,  when  the  British  are 
fighting  the  Germans  on  the  soil  of  France,  has  an 
Intensive  thrill  which  is  missing  to  the  spectator  who 
looks  on  at  the  Home  Sports'  Club  shooting  at  clay- 
pigeons —  which  is  not  in  justification  of  war.  It 
does  explain,  however,  the  attraction  of  gunnery  to 
gunners.  One  forgets  for  the  instant  that  men  are 
being  killed  and  mangled.  He  thinks  only  of  points 
being  scored  in  a  contest  which  requires  all  the  wit 
and  strength  and  fortitude  of  man  and  all  his  cunning 
in  the  manufacture  and  control  of  material. 

You  want  your  side  to  win;  in  this  case,  because  It 
Is  the  side  of  humanity  and  of  that  quiet,  kindly  gen- 
eral and  the  things  that  he  and  the  army  he  represents 
stand  for.  The  blows  which  the  demons  from  the 
British  lairs  strike  are  to  you  the  blows  of  justice; 
and  you  are  glad  when  they  go  home.  They  are 
your  blows.  You  have  a  better  reason  for  keeping  an 
army's  artillery  secrets  than  for  keeping  secret  the 
signals  of  your  Varsity  football  team,  which  any  one 
Instinctly  keeps  —  the  reason  of  a  world  cause. 

Yet  another  thing  to  see  —  an  aeroplane  assisting  a 
battery  by  spotting  the  fall  of  its  shells,  which  is  en- 
grossing, too,  and  amazingly  simple.  Of  course,  this 
battery  was  proud  of  its  method  of  concealment. 
Each  battery  commander  will  tell  you  that  one  of  the 
British  planes  has  flown  very  low,  as  a  test,  without 
being  able  to  locate  his  battery.  If  the  plane  does 
locate  it,  there  is  more  work  due  in  "  make-up  "  to 
complete  the  disguise.  Competition  among  batteries 
is  as  keen  as  among  battleships  of  the  North  Atlantic. 


i82    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Situation  favoured  this  battery,  which  was  Cana- 
dian. It  was  as  nicely  at  home  as  a  first-class  Adiron- 
dack camp.  At  any  rate,  no  other  battery  had  a  dug- 
out for  a  litter  of  eight  pups,  with  clean  straw  for 
their  bed,  right  between  two  gun-emplacements. 

"  We  found  the  mother  wild  out  there  in  the 
woods,"  one  of  the  men  explained.  "  She,  too,  was 
a  victim  of  war;  a  refugee  from  some  home  destroyed 
by  shell-fire.  At  first  she  wouldn't  let  us  approach 
her,  and  we  tossed  her  pieces  of  meat  from  a  safe 
distance.  I  think  those  pups  will  bring  us  luck. 
We'll  take  them  along  to  the  Rhine.  Some  mascots, 
eh?" 

On  our  way  back  to  the  general's  headquarters 
we  must  have  passed  other  batteries  hidden  from 
sight  only  a  stone's  throw  away;  and  yet  in  an  illus- 
trated paper  recently  I  saw  a  drawing  of  some  guns 
emplaced  on  the  crest  of  a  bare  hill,  naked  to  all  the 
batteries  of  the  enemy  but  engaged  in  destroying  all 
the  enemy's  batteries,  according  to  the  account. 
Eleven  months  of  war  have  not  shaken  conventional 
ideas  about  gunnery;  which  is  one  reason  for  writing 
this  chapter. 

Also,  on  our  way  back  we  learned  the  object  of 
the  German  fire  in  answer  to  our  bombardment  of 
the  redoubt  and  the  wireless  station.  They  had 
shelled  a  cross-roads  and  a  certain  village  again.  As 
we  passed  through  the  village  we  noticed  a  new  hole 
in  the  church  tower  and  three  holes  in  the  churchyard, 
which  had  scattered  clods  of  earth  about  the  pave- 
ment. A  shopkeeper  across  the  street  was  engaged 
in  repairing  a  window-frame  that  had  been  broken 
by  a  shell-fragment. 

There  is  no  flustering  the  French  population.     That 


WITH  THE  GUNS  283 

very  day  I  heard  of  an  old  peasant,  who  asked  a 
British  soldier  if  he  could  not  get  permission  for  the 
old  man  to  wear  some  kind  of  an  armband  which 
both  sides  would  respect,  so  that  he  could  cut  his 
field  of  wheat  between  the  trenches.  Why  not? 
Wasn't  it  his  wheat?     Didn't  he  need  the  crop? 

The  Germans  fire  into  villages  and  towns;  for  the 
women  and  children  there  are  the  women  and  children 
of  the  enemy.  But  those  in  the  German  lines  belong 
to  the  ally  of  England.  Besides,  they  are  women 
and  children.  So  British  gunners  avoid  the  towns  — 
which  is,  in  one  sense,  a  professional  handicap. 


XIX 

ARCHIBALD   THE   ARCHER 

The  anti-aeroplane  gun  —  Tricks  of  the  trade  —  The  vagabond  of  the 
army  lines  —  Before  the  days  of  Archibald  —  Pie  for  the  Taube 
— "Swaggerest"  of  the  gun  tribe  —  Sport  of  war  —  Puffs  in  the 
blue  —  Difficulty  of  accuracy — "Sending  the  prying  aerial  eye 
home" — The  business  of  planes. 

There  is  another  kind  of  gun,  vagrant  and  free  lance, 
which  deserves  a  chapter  by  itself.  It  has  the  same 
bark  as  the  eighteen-pounder  field  piece;  the  flight  of 
the  shell  makes  the  same  kind  of  sound.  But  its 
scream,  instead  of  passing  in  a  long  parabola  toward 
the  German  lines,  goes  up  in  the  heavens  toward 
something  as  large  as  your  hand  against  the  light 
blue  of  the  summer  sky  —  a  German  aeroplane. 

At  a  height  of  seven  or  eight  thousand  feet  the 
target  seems  almost  stationary,  when  really  it  is  going 
somewhere  between  fifty  and  ninety  miles  an  hour.  It 
has  all  the  heavens  to  itself,  and  to  the  British  it  is  a 
sinister,  prying  eye  that  wants  to  see  if  we  are  build- 
ing any  new  trenches,  if  we  are  moving  bodies  of 
troops  or  of  transport  in  some  new  direction,  and 
where  our  batteries  are  in  hiding.  That  aviator  three 
miles  above  the  earth  has  many  waiting  guns  at  his 
command.  A  few  signals  from  his  wireless  and  they 
would  let  loose  on  the  target  he  indicated. 

If  the  planes  might  fly  as  low  as  they  pleased,  they 
would  know  all  that  was  going  on  in  an  enemy's  lines. 
They  must  keep  up  so  high  that  through  the  aviator's 

284 


ARCHIBALD  THE  ARCHER  285 

glasses  a  man  on  the  road  is  the  size  of  a  pin-head. 
To  descend  low  is  as  certain  death  as  to  put  your 
head  over  the  parapet  of  a  trench  when  the  enemy's 
trench  is  only  a  hundred  yards  away.  There  are  dead 
lines  in  the  air,  no  less  than  on  the  earth. 

Archibald,  the  anti-aircraft  gun,  sets  the  dead  line. 
He  watches  over  it  as  a  cat  watches  a  mouse.  The 
trick  of  sneaking  up  under  cover  of  a  noon-day  cloud 
and  all  the  other  man-bird  tricks  he  knows.  A  couple 
of  seconds  after  that  crack  a  tiny  puff  of  smoke  breaks 
about  a  hundred  yards  behind  the  Taube.  A  soft 
thistleblow  against  the  blue  it  seems  at  that  altitude; 
but  it  wouldn't  if  it  were  about  your  ears.  Then  it 
would  sound  like  a  bit  of  dynamite  on  an  anvil  struck 
by  a  hammer  and  you  would  hear  the  whiz  of  scores 
of  bullets  and  fragments. 

The  smoking  brass  shell-case  is  out  of  Archibald's 
steel  throat  and  another  shell-case  with  its  charge 
slipped  into  place  and  started  on  its  way  before  the 
first  puff  breaks.  The  aviator  knows  what  is  coming. 
He  knows  that  one  means  many,  once  he  is  in  range. 

Archibald  rushes  the  fighting;  it  is  the  business  of 
the  Taube  to  sidestep.  The  aviator  cannot  hit  back 
except  through  his  allies,  the  German  batteries,  on 
the  earth.  They  would  take  care  of  Archibald  if 
they  knew  where  he  was.  But  all  that  the  aviator 
can  see  is  mottled  landscape.  From  his  side  Archi- 
bald flies  no  goal  flags.  He  is  one  of  ten  thousand 
tiny  objects  under  the  aviator's  eye. 

Archibald's  propensities  are  entirely  peripatetic. 
He  is  the  vagabond  of  the  army  lines.  Locate  him 
and  he  is  gone.  His  home  is  where  night  finds  him 
and  the  day's  duties  take  him.  He  is  the  only  gun 
that  keeps  regular  hours  like  a  Christian  gentleman. 


286  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

All  the  others,  great  and  small,  raucous-voiced  and 
shrill-voiced,  fire  at  any  hour,  night  or  day.  Aero- 
planes rarely  go  up  at  night;  and  when  no  aeroplanes 
are  up,  Archibald  has  no  interest  in  the  war.  But 
he  is  alert  at  the  first  flush  of  dawn,  on  the  lookout  for 
game  with  the  avidity  of  a  pointer  dog;  for  aviators 
are  also  up  early. 

Why  he  was  named  Archibald  nobody  knows.  As 
his  full  name  is  Archibald  the  Archer,  possibly  it 
comes  from  some  association  with  the  idea  of  archery. 
If  there  were  ten  thousand  anti-aircraft  guns  in  the 
British  army,  every  one  would  be  known  as  Archibald. 
When  the  British  Expeditionary  Force  went  to  France 
it  had  none.  All  the  British  could  do  was  to  bang 
away  at  Taubes  with  thousands  of  rounds  of  rifle-bul- 
lets, which  might  fall  in  their  own  lines,  and  with  the 
field  guns. 

It  was  pie  in  those  days  for  the  Taubes !  Easy  to 
keep  out  of  the  range  of  both  rifles  and  guns  and  ob- 
serve well!  If  the  Germans  did  not  know  the  prog- 
ress of  the  British  retreat  from  on  high  it  was  their 
own  fault.  Now,  the  business  of  firing  at  Taubes  is 
left  entirely  to  Archibald.  When  you  see  how  hard  it 
Is  for  Archibald,  after  all  his  practice,  to  get  a  Taube, 
you  understand  how  foolish  it  was  for  the  field  guns 
to  try  to  get  one. 

Archibald,  who  is  quite  the  "  swaggerest  "  of  the 
gim  tribe,  has  his  own  private  car  built  especially  for 
him.  Such  of  the  cavalry's  former  part  as  the  planes 
do  not  play  he  plays.  He  keeps  off  the  enemy's 
scouts.  Do  you  seek  team-work,  spirit  of  corps,  and 
smartness  in  this  theatre  of  France,  where  all  the  old 
glamour  of  war  is  supposed  to  be  lacking?  You  will 
find  it  in  the  attendants  of  Archibald.     They  have 


ARCHIBALD  THE  ARCHER         287 

pride,  elan,  alertness,  pepper,  and  all  the  other  appe- 
tisers and  condiments.  They  are  as  neat  as  a  pri- 
vate yacht's  crew  and  as  lively  as  an  infield  of  a  major 
league  team.  The  Archibaldians  are  naturally  bound 
to  think  rather  well  of  themselves. 

Watch  them  there,  every  man  knowing  his  part,  as 
they  send  their  shells  after  the  Taube !  There  is  not 
enough  waste  motion  among  the  lot  to  tip  over  the 
range-finder,  or  the  telescopes,  or  the  score  board, 
or  any  cf  the  other  paraphernalia  assisting  the  man 
who  is  looking  through  the  sight  in  knowing  where  to 
aim  next,  as  a  screw  answers  softly  to  his  touch. 

Is  the  sport  of  war  dead?  Not  for  Archibald! 
Here  you  see  your  target  —  which  is  so  rare  these 
days  when  British  infantrymen  have  stormed  and 
taken  trenches  without  ever  seeing  a  German  —  and 
the  target  is  a  bird,  a  man-bird.  Puffs  of  smoke  with 
bursting  hearts  of  death  are  clustered  around  the 
Taube.  One  follows  another  in  quick  succession,  for 
more  than  one  Archibald  is  firing,  before  your  en- 
tranced eyes. 

You  are  staring  like  the  crowd  of  a  county  fair 
at  a  parachute  act.  For  the  next  puff  may  get  him. 
Who  knows  this  better  than  the  aviator?  He  is, 
likely,  an  old  hand  at  the  game;  or,  if  he  is  not,  he 
has  all  the  experience  of  other  veterans  to  go  by. 
His  ruse  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  escaped  prisoner, 
who  runs  from  the  fire  of  a  guard  in  a  zigzag  course, 
and  more  than  that.  If  a  puff  comes  near  on  the 
right,  he  turns  to  the  left;  If  one  comes  near  on  the 
left,  he  turns  to  the  right;  if  one  comes  under,  he 
rises;  over,  he  dips.  This  means  that  the  next  shell 
fired  at  the  same  point  will  be  wide  of  the  target. 

Looking  through  the  sight,  It  seems  easy  to  hit  a 


288  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

plane.  But  here  Is  the  difficulty.  It  takes  two  sec- 
onds, say,  for  the  shell  to  travel  to  the  range  of  the 
plane.  The  gunner  must  wait  for  Its  burst  before  he 
can  spot  his  shot.  Ninety  miles  an  hour  is  a  mile 
and  a  half  a  minute.  Divide  that  by  thirty  and  you 
have  about  a  hundred  yards  which  the  plane  has  trav- 
elled from  the  time  the  shell  left  the  gun-muzzle  till 
It  burst.  It  becomes  a  matter  of  discounting  the 
aviator's  speed  and  guessing  from  experience  which 
way  he  will  turn  next. 

That  ought  to  have  got  him  —  the  burst  was  right 
under.  No!  He  rises.  Surely  that  one  got  him! 
The  puff  Is  right  in  front,  partly  hiding  the  Taube 
from  view.  You  see  the  plane  tremble  as  If  struck 
by  a  violent  gust  of  wind.  Close !  Within  thirty  or 
forty  yards,  the  telescope  says.  But  at  that  range  the 
naked  eye  Is  easily  deceived  about  distance.  Probably 
some  of  the  bullets  have  cut  his  plane. 

But  you  must  hit  the  man  or  the  machine  in  a  vital 
spot  In  order  to  bring  down  your  bird.  The  explo- 
sions must  be  very  close  to  count.  It  Is  amazing  how 
much  shell-fire  an  aeroplane  can  stand.  Aviators  are 
accustomed  to  the  whiz  of  shell-fragments  and  bullets 
and  to  have  their  planes  punctured  and  ripped. 
Though  their  engines  are  put  out  of  commission,  and 
frequently  though  the  men  be  wounded,  they  are  able 
to  volplane  back  to  the  cover  of  their  own  lines. 

To  make  a  proper  story  we  ought  to  have  brought 
down  this  particular  bird.  But  It  had  the  luck,  which 
most  planes,  British  or  German,  have,  to  escape  anti- 
aircraft gun-fire.  It  had  begun  edging  away  after  the 
first  shot  and  soon  was  out  of  range.  Archibald  had 
served  the  purpose  of  his  existence.  He  had  sent  the 
prying  aerial  eye  home. 


ARCHIBALD  THE  ARCHER  289 

A  fight  between  planes  in  the  air  very  rarely  hap- 
pens, except  in  the  imagination.  Planes  do  not  go  up 
to  fight  other  planes,  but  for  observation.  Their  busi- 
ness is  to  see  and  learn  and  bring  home  their  news. 


XX 

TRENCHES   IN   SUMMER 

General  Mud  "  down  and  out " — "  What  hopes !  " —  Heroes  in  khaki 
— "  Tickets  to  England  " —  Coddling  at  home  —  Comradeship 
among  the  men  —  The  uses  of  barbed  wire — "Your  hat,  sir!" 

—  Sniping  —  Sentimental  Mr.  Atkins  —  Exchange  of  pleasantries 

—  A  "Boche"  joke  —  A  mine  explodes  —  Wasting  the  Kaiser's 
powder  —  A  maze  of  trench  "streets" — A  soldier  cook  —  And 
cook  stoves  —  Officers'  mess  —  Fresh  from  Sandhurst — "When 
do  you  think  the  war  will  be  over?" — Strafing  the  chicken  — 
From  favourite  actors  to  military  methods  —  A  night  crawl  be- 
tAveen  trenches  —  An  alarm  —  In  the  midst  of  barbed-wire  — 
Crawling  patrols  in  the  wheat  field  —  A  narrow  escape  —  A 
trench  cot  —  The  "morning  hate"  —  A  memory  of  cheerful  hos- 
pitality. 

It  was  the  same  trench  in  June,  still  a  relatively  "  quiet 
corner,"  which  I  had  seen  in  March;  but  I  would  never 
have  known  it  if  its  location  had  not  been  the  same 
on  the  map.  One  was  puzzled  how  a  place  that  had 
been  so  wet  could  become  so  dry. 

This  time  the  approach  was  made  in  daylight 
through  a  long  communication  ditch,  which  brought  us 
to  a  shell-wrecked  farmhouse.  We  passed  through 
this  and  stepped  down  at  the  back  door  into  deep  tra- 
verses cut  among  the  roots  of  an  orchard;  then  behind 
walls  of  earth  high  above  our  heads  to  battalion  headr 
quarters  in  a  neat  little  shanty,  where  I  deposited  the 
first  of  the  cakes  I  had  brought,  on  the  table  beside 
some  battalion  reports.  A  cake  is  the  right  gift  for 
the  trenches,  though  less  so  in  summer  than  in  winter 
when  appetites  are  less  keen.     The  adjutant  tried  a; 

290 


TRENCHES  IN  SUMMER  291 

slice  while  the  colonel  conferred  with  the  general,  who 
had  accompanied  me  this  far;  and  he  glanced  up  at  a 
sheet  of  writing  with  a  line  opposite  hours  of  the  day, 
pinned  to  a  post  of  his  dugout. 

"  I  wanted  to  see  if  it  were  time  to  make  another 
report,"  he  said.  "  We  are  always  making  reports. 
Everybody  is,  so  that  whoever  is  superior  to  some  one 
else  knows  what  is  happening  in  his  subordinate's  de- 
partment." 

Then  in  and  out  in  a  maze,  between  walls  with 
straight  faces  on  the  hard,  dry  earth,  testifying  to  the 
beneficence  of  summer  weather  in  constructing  fast- 
nesses from  artillery  fire,  until  we  were  in  the  firing- 
trench,  where  I  was  at  home  among  the  officers  and 
men  of  a  company.  General  Mud  was  "  down  and 
out."  He  waited  on  the  winter  rains  to  take  com- 
mand again.  But  winter  would  find  an  army  prepared 
against  his  kind  of  campaign.  Life  in  the  trenches 
in  summer  was  not  so  unpleasant  but  that  some  pre- 
ferred it,  with  the  excitement  of  sniping,  to  the  bore- 
dom of  billets. 


"  What  hopes !  "  was  the  current  phrase  I  heard 
among  the  men  in  these  trenches.  It  shared  honours 
with  strafe.  You  have  only  one  life  to  live  and  you 
may  lose  that  any  second  —  what  hopes!  Dig,  dig, 
dig,  and  set  off  a  mine  that  sends  Germans  skyward 
in  a  cloud  of  dust  —  what  hopes!  Bully  beef  from 
Chicago  and  Argentina  is  no  food  for  babes,  but  bet- 
ter than  "  K.K,"  bread  —  what  hopes !  Mr.  Thomas 
Atkins,  British  regular,  takes  things  as  they  come  — 
and  a  lot  of  them  come  —  shells,  bullets,  asphyxiating 
gas,  grenades,  and  bombs. 


292    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

There  is  much  to  be  thankful  for.  The  King's 
Own  Particular  Fusiliers,  as  we  shall  call  this  regiment, 
had  only  three  men  hit  yesterday.  On  every  man's 
cap  is  a  metal  badge  crowded  with  battle  honours, 
from  the  storming  of  Quebec  to  the  relief  of  Lady- 
smith.  Heroic  its  history ;  but  no  battle  honours  equal 
that  of  the  regiment's  part  in  the  second  battle  of 
Ypres;  and  no  heroes  of  the  regiment's  story,  whom 
you  picture  in  imagination  with  halos  of  glory  in  the 
wish  that  you  might  have  met  them  in  the  flesh  in 
their  scarlet  coats,  are  the  equal  of  these  survivors  in 
plain  khaki  manning  a  ditch  in  A.  D.  19 15,  whom  any 
one  may  meet. 

But  do  not  tell  them  that  they  are  heroes.  They 
will  deny  it  on  the  evidence  of  themselves  as  eye- 
witnesses of  the  action.  To  remark  that  the  K.  O.  P. 
F.  are  brave  is  like  remarking  that  water  flows  down 
hill.  It  is  the  business  of  the  K.  O.  P.  F.  to  be 
brave.     Why  talk  about  it? 

One  of  the  three  men  hit  was  killed.  Well,  every- 
body in  the  war  rather  expects  to  be  killed.  The 
other  two  "  got  tickets  to  England,"  as  they  say.  My 
lady  will  take  the  convalescents  joy  riding  in  her  car 
and  afterwards  seat  them  in  easy  chairs,  arranging 
the  cushions  with  her  own  hands,  and  feed  them  shces 
of  cold  chicken  in  place  of  bully  beef  and  strawberries 
and  cream  in  place  of  ration  marmalade.  Oh,  my! 
What  hopes! 

Mr.  Atkins  does  not  mind  being  a  hero  for  the  pur- 
poses of  such  treatment.  Then,  with  never  a  twinkle 
in  his  eye,  he  will  tell  my  lady  that  he  does  not  want 
to  return  to  the  front;  he  has  had  enough  of  it,  he 
has.  My  lady's  patriotism  will  be  a  trifle  shocked, 
as  Mr.  Atkins  knows  it  will  be;  and  she  will  wonder 


TRENCHES  IN  SUMMER  293 

if  the  "  stick  it "  quality  of  the  British  soldier  is 
weakening,  as  Mr.  Atkins  knows  she  will.  For  he 
has  more  kinks  in  his  mental  equipment  than  mere  no- 
bility ever  guesses  and  he  is  having  the  time  of  his 
life  in  more  respects  than  strawberries  and  cream. 
What  hopes !  Of  course,  he  will  return  and  hold  on 
in  the  face  of  all  that  the  Germans  can  give,  without 
any  pretence  to  bravery. 

If  one  goes  as  a  stranger  into  the  trenches  on  a 
sightseeing  tour  and  says,  "  How  are  you  ?  "  and, 
*'  Are  you  going  to  Berlin?  "  and,  "  Are  you  comfort- 
able? "  etc.,  Tommy  Atkins  will  say,  "  Yes,  sir,"  and 
"  Very  well,  sir,"  etc.,  as  becomes  all  polite  regular 
soldier  men;  and  you  get  to  know  him  about  as  well  as 
you  know  the  members  of  a  club  if  you  are  shown 
the  library  and  dine  at  a  corner  table  with  a 
friend. 

Spend  the  night  in  the  trenches  and  you  are  taken 
Into  the  family;  into  that  very  human  family  of  sol- 
dierdom  in  a  quiet  corner;  and  the  old,  care-free 
spirit  of  war,  which  some  people  thought  had  passed, 
is  found  to  be  no  less  alive  in  siege  warfare  than  on 
a  march  of  regulars  on  the  Indian  frontier  or  in  the 
Philippines.  Gaiety  and  laughter  and  comradeship 
and  "  joshing  "  are  here  among  men  to  whom  wounds 
and  death  are  a  part  of  the  game.  One  may  challenge 
high  explosives  with  a  smile,  no  less  than  ancient  round 
shot.  Settle  down  behind  the  parapet  and  the  little 
incongruities  of  a  trench,  paltry  without  the  intimacy 
of  men  and  locality,  make  for  humour  no  less  than  in 
a  shop  or  a  factory. 

Under  the  parapet  runs  the  tangle  of  barbed  wire  — 
barbed  wire  from  Switzerland  to  Belgium  —  to  wel- 
come visitors  from  that  direction,  which,  to  say  the 


294    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

least,  would  be  an  Impolitic  direction  of  approach  for 
any  stranger. 

"  All  sightseers  should  come  Into  the  trenches  from 
the  rear,"  says  Mr.  Atkins.  '*  Put  It  down  in  the 
guidebooks." 

Beyond  the  barbed  wire  In  the  open  field  the  wheat 
which  some  farmer  sowed  before  the  positions  were 
established  In  this  area  Is  now  In  head,  rippling  with 
the  breeze,  making  a  golden  sea  up  to  the  wall  of 
sandbags  which  Is  the  enemy's  line.  It  was  late  June 
at  its  loveliest;  no  signs  of  war  except  the  sound  of 
our  guns  some  distance  away  and  an  occasional  sni- 
per's bullet.  One  cracked  past  as  I  was  looking 
through  my  glasses  to  see  if  there  were  any  evidence 
of  life  in  the  German  trenches. 

"Your  hat,  sir!" 

Another  moved  a  sandbag  slightly,  but  not  until 
after  the  hat  had  come  down  and  the  head  under  it 
most  expeditiously.  Up  to  eight  hundred  yards  a 
bullet  cracks;  beyond  that  range  it  whistles,  sighs,  even 
wheezes.  An  elevation  gives  snipers,  who  are  always 
trained  shots,  an  angle  of  advantage.  In  winter  they 
had  to  rely  for  cover  on  buildings,  which  often  came 
tumbling  down  with  them  when  hit  by  a  shell.  The 
foliage  of  summer  is  a  boon  to  their  craft. 

"  Does  It  look  to  you  like  an  opening  In  the  branches 
of  that  tree  —  the  big  one  at  the  right?  " 

In  the  mass  of  leaves  a  dark  spot  was  visible.  It 
might  be  natural,  or  it  might  be  a  space  cut  away  for 
the  swing  of  a  rifle  barrel.  Perhaps  sitting  up  there 
snugly  behind  a  bullet-proof  shield  fastened  to  the 
limbs  was  a  German  sharpshooter,  watching  for  a 
shot  with  the  patience  of  a  hound  for  a  rabbit  to  come 
out  of  Its  hole. 


JRENCHES  IN  SUMMER  295 

"  It's  about  time  we  gave  that  tree  a  spray  good  for 
that  kind  of  fungus,  from  a  machine  gun!  " 

A  bullet  coming  from  our  side  swept  overhead. 
One  of  our  own  sharpshooters  had  seen  something  to 
shoot  at. 

"  Not  giving  you  much  excitement!  "  said  Tommy. 

"  I  suppose  I'd  get  a  little  If  I  stood  up  on  the 
parapet?  "  I  asked. 

"  You  wouldn't  get  a  ticket  for  England;  you'd  get 
a  box!" 

"  There's  a  cemetery  just  back  of  the  lines  if  you'd 
prefer  to  stay  in  France !  " 

I  had  passed  that  cemetery  with  its  fresh  wooden 
crosses  on  my  way  to  the  trench.  These  tender- 
hearted soldiers  who  joked  with  death  had  placed  flow- 
ers on  the  graves  of  fallen  comrades  and  bought  elabo- 
rate French  funeral  wreaths  with  their  meagre  pay  — 
which  is  another  side  of  Mr.  Thomas  Atkins.  There 
is  sentiment  in  him.  Yes,  he's  loaded  with  sentiment, 
but  not  for  the  movies. 

"  Keep  your  head  down  there,  Eames!  "  called  a 
corporal.  "  I  don't  want  to  be  taking  an  inventory 
of  your  kit." 

Eames  did  not  even  realise  that  his  head  was  above 
the  parapet.  The  hardest  thing  to  teach  a  soldier  is 
not  to  expose  himself.  Officers  keep  iterating  warn- 
ings and  then  forget  to  practise  what  they  preach. 
That  morning  a  soldier  had  been  shot  through  the 
heart  and  arm  sideways  back  of  the  trench.  He  had 
lain  down  unnoticed  for  a  nap  in  the  sun,  it  was  sup- 
posed. When  he  awoke,  presumably  he  sat  up  and 
yawned  and  Herr  Schmidt,  from  some  platform  In  a 
tree,  had  a  bloody  reward  for  his  patience. 

The  next  morning  I  saw  the  British  take  their  re- 


296  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

venge.  Some  German  who  thought  that  he  could  not 
be  seen  in  the  mist  of  dawn  was  walking  along  the 
German  parapet.  What  hopes!  Four  or  five  men 
took  careful  aim  and  fired.  That  dim  figure  collapsed 
in  a  way  that  was  convincing. 

As  I  swept  the  line  of  German  trenches  with  the 
glasses,  I  saw  a  wisp  of  a  flag  clinging  to  its  pole  in 
the  still  air  far  down  to  the  left.  Flags  are  as  unusual 
above  trenches  as  men  standing  up  in  full  view  of  the 
enemy.  Then  a  breeze  caught  the  folds  of  the  flag 
and  I  saw  that  it  was  the  tricolour  of  France. 

"  A  Boche  joke!  "  Tommy  explained. 

"  Probably  they  are  hating  the  French  to-day?  " 

"  No,  it's  been  there  for  some  days.  They  want 
us  to  shoot  at  the  flag  of  our  ally.  They'd  get  a 
laugh  out  of  that  —  a  regular  Boche  notion  of  hu- 
mour." 

"  If  it  were  a  German  flag?  "  I  suggested. 

"  What  hopes !  We'd  make  it  into  a  lace  cur- 
tain!" 

Even  the  guns  had  ceased  firing.  The  birds  in  their 
evensong  had  all  the  war  to  themselves.  It  was  diffi- 
cult to  believe  that  if  you  stood  on  top  of  the  parapet 
anybody  would  shoot  at  you;  no,  not  even  if  you 
walked  down  the  road  that  ran  through  the  wheat- 
field,  everything  was  so  peaceful.  One  grew  scepti- 
cal of  there  being  any  Germans  in  the  trenches  oppo- 
site. 

"  There  are  three  or  four  sharpshooters  and  a  fat 
old  Boche  professor  in  spectacles,  who  moves  a  ma- 
chine gun  up  and  down  for  a  bluff,"  said  a  soldier, 
and  another  corrected  him: 

"  No,  the  old  professor's  the  one  that  walks  along 
at  night  sending  up  flares !  " 


TRENCHES  IN  SUMMER  297 

"  Munching  K.K.  bread  with  his  false  teeth!  " 

"  And  singing  the  hymn  of  hate!  " 

Thus  the  talk  ran  on  in  the  quiet  of  evening,  till 
we  heard  a  concussion  and  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away, 
behind  a  screen  of  trees,  a  pillar  of  smoke  rose  to  the 
height  of  two  or  three  hundred  feet. 

"Amine!" 

"  In  front  of  the  — th  brigade!  " 

'' Ours  or  the  Boches'f" 

*'  Ours,  from  the  way  the  smoke  went  —  our  fuse !  " 

"No,  theirs!" 

Our  colonel  telephoned  down  to  know  if  we  knew 
whose  mine  it  was,  which  was  the  question  we  wanted 
to  ask  him.  The  guns  from  both  sides  became  busy 
under  the  column  of  smoke.  Oh,  yes,  there  were 
Germans  in  the  trenches  which  had  appeared  vacant. 
Their  shots  and  ours  merged  in  the  hissing  medley  of 
a  tempest. 

"Not  enough  guns  —  not  enough  noise  for  an  at- 
tack !  "  said  experienced  Tommy,  who  knew  what  an 
attack  was  like. 

The  commander  of  the  adjoining  brigade  tele- 
phoned to  the  division  commander,  who  passed  the 
word  through  to  our  colonel,  who  passed  it  to  us, 
that  the  mine  was  German  and  had  burst  thirty  yards 
short  of  the  British  trench. 

"  After  all  that  digging,  wasting  Boche  powder  in 
that  fashion!  The  Kaiser  won't  like  it!  "  said  Mr. 
Atkins.  "  We  exploded  one  under  them  yesterday 
and  it  made  them  hate  so  hard  they  couldn't  wait. 
They've  awful  tempers,  the  Bodies!"  And  he  fin- 
ished the  job  on  which  he  was  engaged  when  inter- 
rupted, eating  a  large  piece  of  ration  bread  sur- 
mounted by  all  the  ration  jam  it  would  hold;  while 


298    MY  YEAR  OF  JHE  GREAT  WAR 

one  of  the  company  officers  reminded  me  that  it  was 
about  dinner  time. 


"What  do  you  think  I  am?  A  blooming  traffic 
poHceman?"  growled  the  cook  to  two  soldiers  who 
had  found  themselves  in  a  blind  alley  in  the  maze  of 
streets  back  of  the  firing-trench.  "My  word!  Is 
His  Majesty's  army  becoming  illiterate?  Strafe  that 
sign  at  the  corner !  What  do  you  think  we  put  It  up 
for?  To  show  what  a  beautiful  hand  we  had  at  print- 
ing?" 

The  sign  on  a  board  fastened  against  the  earth  wall 
read,  "  No  thoroughfare!  "  The  soldier  cook,  with 
a  fork  In  his  hand,  his  sleeves  rolled  up,  his  shirt  open 
at  his  tanned  throat,  looked  formidable.  He  was 
preoccupied;  he  was  at  close  quarters  roasting  a 
chicken  over  a  small  stove.  Yes,  they  have  cook 
stoves  In  the  trenches.  Why  not  ?  The  line  had  been 
in  the  same  position  for  six  months. 

"  Little  by  little  we  Improve  our  happy  home," 
said  the  cook. 

The  latest  acquisition  was  a  lace  curtain  for  the 
officers'  mess  hall,  bought  at  a  store  in  the  nearest 
town. 

When  the  cook  was  inside  his  kitchen  there  was  no 
room  to  spill  anything  on  the  floor.  The  kitchen  was 
about  three  feet  square,  with  boarded  walls  and  roof, 
which  was  covered  with  tar  paper  and  a  layer  of 
earth  set  level  with  the  trench  parapet.  The  chicken 
roasted  and  the  frying  potatoes  sizzled  as  an  occa- 
sional bullet  passed  overhead,  even  as  flies  buzz  about 
the  screen  door  when  Mary  is  baking  biscuits  for  sup- 
per. 


TRENCHES  IN  SUMMER  299 

The  officers'  mess  hall,  next  to  the  kitchen  and 
built  in  the  same  fashion,  had  some  boards  nailed  on 
posts  sunk  in  the  ground  for  a  table,  which  was  proof 
against  tipping  when  you  climbed  over  it  or  squeezed 
around  it  to  your  place.  The  chairs  were  rifle-am- 
munition boxes,  whose  contents  had  been  emptied  with 
individual  care,  bullet  by  bullet,  at  the  Germans  in 
the  trench  on  the  other  side  of  the  wheat-field.  Din- 
ner was  at  nine  in  the  evening,  when  it  was  still  twi- 
light in  the  longest  day  of  the  year  in  this  region. 
The  hour  fits  in  with  trench  routine,  when  night  is  the 
time  to  be  on  guard  and  you  sleep  by  day.  Breakfast 
comes  at  nine  in  the  morning.  I  w^as  invited  to  help 
eat  the  chicken  and  to  spend  the  night. 

Now,  the  general  commanding  the  brigade  who  ac- 
companied me  to  the  trenches  had  been  hit  twice.  So 
had  the  colonel,  a  man  about  forty.  From  forty,  ages 
among  the  regimental  officers  dropped  into  th€  twen- 
ties. Many  of  the  older  men  who  started  in  the 
war  had  been  killed,  or  were  back  in  England  wounded, 
or  had  been  promoted  to  other  commands  where  their 
experience  was  more  useful.  To  youth,  life  is  sweet 
and  danger  is  life.  The  oldest  of  the  officers  of  the 
proud  old  K.  O.  P.  F.  who  gathered  for  dinner  was 
about  twenty-five,  though  when  he  assumed  an  air  of 
authority  he  seemed  about  forty.  It  was  not  right  to 
ask  the  youngest  his  age.  Parenthetically,  let  it  be 
said  that  he  is  trying  to  start  a  moustache.  They  had 
come  fresh  from  Sandhurst  to  swift  tuition  in  gruel- 
ling, incessant  warfare. 

"  Has  any  one  asked  him  it  yet?  "  one  inquired,  re- 
ferring to  some  question  to  the  guest. 

"Not  yet?  Then  all  together:  When  do  you 
think  that  the  war  will  be  over?  " 


300  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

It  was  the  eternal  question  of  the  trenches,  the  army 
and  the  world.  We  had  it  over  with  before  the  sol- 
dier cook  brought  on  the  roast  chicken,  which  was 
received  with  a  befitting  chorus  of  approbation: 

Who  would  carve?  Who  knew  how  to  carve? 
Modesty  passed  the  honour  to  its  neighbour,  till  a 
brave  man  said: 

"  I  will!     I  will  strafe  the  chicken!  " 

Gott  strafe  England!  Strafe  has  become  a  noun,  a 
verb,  an  adjective,  a  cussword,  and  a  term  of  greeting. 
Soldier  asks  soldier  how  he  is  strafing  to-day.  When 
the  Germans  are  not  called  Bodies  they  are  called 
Strafers.  "Won't  you  strafe  a  little  for  us?" 
Tommy  sings  out  to  the  German  trenches  when  they 
are  close*     What  hopes! 

That  gallant  youngster  of  the  K.  O.  P.  F.  in  the 
midst  of  bantering  advice  succeeded  in  separating  the 
meat  from  the  bones  without  landing  a  leg  in  any- 
body's lap  or  a  wing  in  anybody's  eye.  Timid  spec- 
tators who  had  hung  back  where  he  had  dared  might 
criticise  his  form,  but  they  could  not  deny  the  effi- 
ciency of  his  execution.  He  was  appointed  permanent 
"  strafer  "  of  all  the  fowls  that  came  to  table. 

Everybody  talked  and  joked  about  everything,  from 
plays  in  London  to  the  Germans.  There  were  argu- 
ments about  favourite  actors  and  military  methods. 
The  sense  of  danger  was  as  absent  as  if  we  had  been 
dining  in  a  summer  garden.  It  was  the  parents  and 
relatives  in  pleasant  English  homes  in  fear  of  a  dread 
telegram  who  were  worrying,  not  the  sons  and  broth- 
ers in  danger.  Isn't  it  better  that  way?  Would  not 
the  parents  prefer  It  that  way?  Wasn't  it  the  way  of 
the  ancestors  in  the  scarlet  coats  and  the  Merrie  Eng- 
land of  their  day?    With  the  elasticity  of  youth  my 


TRENCHES  IN  SUMMER  301 

hosts  adapted  themselves  to  circumstances.  In  their 
light-heartedness  they  made  war  seem  a  keen  sport. 
They  lived  war  for  all  it  was  worth.  If  it  gets  on 
their  nerves  their  efficiency  is  spoiled.  There  is  no 
room  for  a  jumpy,  excitable  man  in  the  trenches. 
Youth's  resources  defy  monotony  and  death  at  the 
same  time. 

An  expedition  had  been  planned  for  that  night.  A 
patrol  the  previous  night  had  brought  in  word  that  the 
Germans  had  been  sneaking  up  and  piling  sandbags  in 
the  wheat-field.  The  plan  was  to  slip  out  as  soon 
as  it  was  really  dark  with  a  machine  gun  and  a  dozen 
men,  get  behind  the  Germans'  own  sandbags,  and  give 
them  a  perfectly  informal  reception  when  they  re- 
turned to  go  on  with  their  work. 

Before  dinner,  however,  J ,  who  was  to  be  the 

general  of  the  expedition,  and  his  subordinates  made 
a  reconnaissance.  Two  or  more  officers  or  men  al- 
ways go  out  together  on  any  trip  of  this  kind  in  that 
ticklish  space  between  the  trenches,  where  it  is  almost 
certain  death  to  be  seen  by  the  enemy.  If  one  is 
hit  the  other  can  help  him  back.  If  one  survives  he 
will  bring  back  the  result  of  his  investigations. 

J had  his  own  ideas  about  comfort  in  trousers 

in  the  trench  in  summer.  He  wore  trunks  with  his 
knees  bare.  When  he  had  to  do  a  "  crawl  "  he  un- 
wound his  puttee  leggings  and  wound  them  over  his 
knees.  He  and  the  others  slipped  over  the  parapet 
without  attracting  the  attention  of  the  enemy's  sharp- 
shooters. On  hands  and  knees,  Hke  boy  scouts  play- 
ing Indian,  they  passed  through  a  narrow  avenue  in 
the  ugly  barbed  wire,  and  still  not  a  shot  at  them.  A 
matter  of  the  commonplace  to  the  men  in  the  trench 
held  the  spectator  in  suspense.     There  was  a  fasci- 


302    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

nation  about  the  thing,  too;  that  of  the  sporting 
chance,  without  a  full  realisation  that  failure  in  this 
hide-and-seek  game  might  mean  a  spray  of  bullets 
and  death  for  these  young  men. 

They  entered  the  wheat,  moving  slowly  like  two 
land  turtles.  The  grain  parted  in  swaths  over  them. 
Surely  the  Germans  might  see  the  turtles'  heads  as 
they  were  raised  to  look  around.  No  officer  can  be 
too  young  and  supple  for  this  kind  of  work.  Here 
the  company  officer  just  out  of  school  is  in  his  element, 
with  an  advantage  over  older  officers.  That  pair 
were  used  to  crawling.  They  did  not  keep  their  heads 
up  long.  They  knew  just  how  far  they  might  expose 
themselves.  They  passed  out  of  sight,  and  reap- 
peared and  slipped  back  over  the  parapet  again  with- 
out the  Germans  being  any  the  wiser. 

Hard  luck!  It  is  an  unaccommodating  world! 
They  found  that  the  patrol  which  had  examined  the 
bags  at  night  had  failed  to  discern  that  they  were  old 
and  must  have  been  there  for  some  time. 

"  I'll  take  the  machine  gun  out,  anyhow,  if  the  col- 
onel will  permit  it,"  said  J . 

For  the  colonel  puts  on  the  brakes.  Otherwise, 
there  is  no  telling  what  risks  youth  might  take  with 
machine  guns. 

We  were  half  through  dinner  when  a  corporal  came 
to  report  that  a  soldier  on  watch  thought  that  he 
had  seen  some  Germans  moving  in  the  wheat  very  near 
our  barbed  wire.  Probably  a  false  alarm;  but  no 
one  in  a  trench  ever  acts  on  the  theory  that  any  alarm 
is  false.  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  holding  a 
trench.  Either  side  is  cudgelling  its  brains  day  and 
night  to  spring  some  new  trick  on  the  other.  If  one 
side   succeeds   with   a   trick,    the   other   immediately 


TRENCHES  IN  SUMMER  303 

adopts  it.  No  International  copyright  on  strategy  is 
recognised.  We  rushed  out  of  the  mess  hall  into  the 
firing-trench,  where  we  found  the  men  on  the  alert, 
their  rifles  laid  on  the  spot  where  the  Germans  were 
supposed  to  have  been  seen. 

"  Who  are  you?  Answer,  or  we  fire!  "  called  the 
ranking  young  lieutenant. 

If  any  persons  present  out  at  front  in  face  of  thirty 
rifles  knew  the  English  language  and  had  not  lost 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  they  would  certainly 
have  become  articulate  in  response  to  such  an  unveiled 
hint.  Not  a  sound  came.  Probably  a  rabbit  running 
through  the  wheat  had  been  the  cause  of  the  alarm. 
But  you  take  no  risks.  The  order  was  given,  and 
the  men  combed  the  wheat  with  a  fusillade. 

"Enough!  Cease  fire!"  said  the  officer.  "No- 
body there.  If  there  had  been  we  should  have  heard 
the  groan  of  a  wounded  man  or  seen  the  wheat  stir 
as  the  Germans  hugged  closer  to  the  earth  for  cover." 

This  he  knew  by  experience.  It  was  not  the  first 
time  he  had  used  a  fusillade  in  this  kind  of  a  test. 

After  dinner  J rolled  his  puttees  up  around  his 

bare  knees  again,  for  the  colonel  had  not  withdrawn 

permission  for  the  machine  gun  expedition.     J 's 

knees  were  black  and  blue  in  spots;  they  were  also  — 
well,  there  is  not  much  water  for  washing  purposes 
In  the  trenches.  Great  sport  that,  crawling  through 
the  dew-moist  wheat  in  the  faint  moonlight,  looking 
for  a  bunch  of  Germans  In  the  hope  of  turning  a 
machine  gun  on  them  before  they  turn  one  on  you. 

"  One  man  hit  by  a  stray  bullet,"  said  J ,  on  his 

return. 

"  I  heard  the  bullet  go  th-ip  into  the  earth  after  it 
went  through  his  leg,"  said  the  other  officer. 


304  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"  Blythe  was  a  recruit  and  he  had  asked  me  to  take 
him  out  the  first  time  there  was  anything  doing.  I 
promised  that  I  would,  and  he  got  about  the  only 
shot  fired  at  us." 

"  Need  a  stretcher?" 

"  No." 

Blythe  came  hobbling  through  the  traverse  to  the 
communication  trench,  seeming  well  pleased  with  him- 
self. The  soft  part  of  the  leg  is  not  a  bad  place  to 
receive  a  bullet  if  one  is  due  to  hit  you. 


Night  is  always  the  time  in  the  trenches  when  life 
grows  more  interesting  and  death  more  likely. 

"  It's  dark  enough,  now,"  said  one  of  the  youngsters 
who  was  out  on  another  scout.  "  We'll  go  out  with 
the  patrol." 

By  day,  the  slightest  movement  of  the  enemy  is 
easily  and  instantly  detected.  The  light  keeps  the 
combatants  to  the  warrens  which  protect  them  from 
shell  and  bullet-fire.  At  night  there  is  no  telling  what 
mischief  the  enemy  may  be  up  to;  you  must  depend 
upon  the  ear  rather  than  the  eye  for  watching.  Then 
the  human  soldier-fox  comes  out  of  his  burrow  and 
sneaks  forth  on  the  lookout  for  prey;  both  sides  are 
on  the  prowl. 

"  Trained  owls  would  be  the  most  valuable  scouts 
we  could  have,"  said  the  young  officer.  "  They 
would  be  more  useful  than  aeroplanes  in  locating  the 
enemy's  gun  positions.  A  properly  reliable  owl  would 
come  back  and  say  that  a  German  patrol  was  out  in 
the  wheat-field  at  such  a  point  and  a  machine  gun 
would  wipe  out  the  German  patrol." 


TRENCHES  IN  SUMMER  305 

We  turned  into  a  side  trench,  an  alley  off  the  main 
street,  leading  out  of  the  front  trench  toward  the 
Germans. 

"  Anybody  out?  "  he  asked  a  soldier,  who  was  on 
guard  at  the  end  of  it. 

"  Yes,  two." 

Climbing  out  of  the  ditch,  we  were  in  the  midst  of 
a  tangle  of  barbed  wire  protecting  the  trench  front, 
which  was  faintly  visible  in  the  starlight.  There  was 
a  break  in  the  tangle,  a  narrow  cut  in  the  hedge,  as  it 
were,  kept  open  for  just  such  purposes  as  this.  When 
the  patrol  returned  it  closed  the  gate  again. 

"Look  out  for  that  wire  —  just  there!  Do  you 
see  it?  We've  everything  to  keep  the  Bodies  off  our 
front  lawn  except  '  keep  off  the  grass!  '  signs." 

It  was  perfectly  still,  a  warm  summer  night  with- 
out a  cat's-paw  of  breeze.  Through  the  dark  curtain 
of  the  sky  in  a  parabola  rising  from  the  German 
trenches  swept  a  brilliant  sputter  of  red  light  of  a 
German  flare.  It  was  coming  as  straight  toward  us 
as  if  it  had  been  aimed  at  us.  It  cast  a  searching,  un- 
canny glare  over  the  taU  wheat  in  head  between  the 
trenches. 

"  Down  flat!  "  whispered  the  officer. 

It  seemed  foolish  to  grovel  before  a  piece  of  fire- 
works. There  was  no  firing  in  our  neighbourhood; 
nothing  to  indicate  a  state  of  war  between  the  British 
Empire  and  Germany;  no  visual  evidence  of  any  Ger- 
man army  anywhere  in  France  except  that  flare. 
However,  if  a  guide,  who  knows  as  much  about  war 
as  this  one,  says  to  prostrate  yourself  when  you  are 
out  between  two  lines  of  machine  guns  and  rifles  — 
between  the  fighting  powers  of  Britain  and  Germany 


3o6    MY  YEAR  OF  JHE  GREAT  WAR 

—  you  take  the  hint.  The  flare  sank  Into  the  earth  a 
few  yards  away,  after  a  last  insulting,  ugly  fling  of 
sparks  in  our  faces. 

"  What  if  we  had  been  seen?  " 

*'  They'd  have  combed  the  wheat  In  this  neighbour- 
hood thoroughly,  and  they  might  have  got  us." 

"  It's  hard  to  believe,"  I  said. 

So  it  was,  he  agreed.  That  was  the  exasperating 
thing  about  it.  Always  hard  to  believe,  perhaps,  un- 
til after  all  the  cries  of  wolf  the  wolf  came ;  until  after 
nineteen  harmless  flares  the  twentieth  revealed  to  the 
watching  enemy  the  figure  of  a  man  above  the  wheat, 
when  a  crackling  chorus  of  bullets  would  suddenly 
break  the  silence  of  night  by  concentrating  on  a  target. 
Keeping  cover  from  German  flares  Is  a  part  of  the 
minute,  painstaking  economy  of  war. 

We  crawled  on  slowly,  taking  care  to  make  no  noise, 
till  we  brought  up  behind  two  soldiers  hugging  the 
earth,  rifles  in  hand  ready  to  fire  Instantly.  It  was 
their  business  not  only  to  see  the  enemy  first,  but  to 
shoot  first,  and  to  capture  or  kill  any  German  patrol. 
The  officer  spoke  to  them  and  they  answered.  It 
was  unnecessary  for  them  to  say  that  they  had  seen 
nothing.  If  they  had  we  should  have  known  It.  He 
was  out  there  less  to  scout  himself  than  to  make  sure 
that  they  were  on  the  job;  that  they  knew  how  to 
watch.  The  visit  was  part  of  his  routine.  We  did 
not  even  whisper.  Preferably,  all  whispering  would 
be  done  by  any  German  patrol  out  to  have  a  look  at 
our  barbed  wire  and  overheard  by  us. 

Silence  and  the  starlight  and  the  damp  wheat;  but, 
yes,  there  was  war.  You  heard  gun-fire  half  a  mile, 
perhaps  a  mile,  away;  and  raising  your  head  you  saw 
auroras  from  bursting  shells.     We  heard  at  our  backs 


TRENCHES  IN  SUMMER  307 

faintly  snatches  of  talk  from  our  trenches  and  faintly 
in  front  the  talk  from  theirs.  It  sounded  rather  in- 
viting and  friendly  from  both  sides,  like  that  around 
some  campfire  on  the  plains. 

It  seemed  quite  within  the  bounds  of  probability  that 
you  might  have  crawled  on  up  to  the  Germans  and 
said,  "  Howdy!  "  But  by  the  time  you  reached  the 
edge  of  their  barbed  wire  and  before  you  could  pre- 
sent your  visiting-card,  if  not  sooner,  you  would  have 
been  full  of  holes.  That  was  just  the  kind  of  diver- 
sion from  trench  monotony  for  which  the  Germans 
were  looking. 

"  Well,  shall  we  go  back?  "  asked  the  officer. 

There  seemed  no  particular  purpose  in  spending 
the  night  prone  in  the  wheat  with  your  ears  cocked 
like  a  pointer  dog's.  Besides,  he  had  other  duties, 
exacting  duties  laid  down  by  the  colonel  as  the  result 
of  trench  experience  in  his  responsibility  for  the  com- 
mand of  a  company  of  men. 

It  happened,  as  we  crawled  back  Into  the  trench, 
that  a  fury  of  shots  broke  out  from  a  point  along 
the  line  two  or  three  hundred  yards  away;  sharp, 
vicious  shots  on  the  still  night  air,  stabbing,  merciless 
death  in  their  sound.  Oh,  yes,  there  was  war  in 
France ;  unrelenting,  shrewd,  tireless  war.  A  touch  of 
suspicion  anywhere  and  the  hornets  swarmed. 


It  was  two  A.  M.  From  the  dugouts  came  un- 
mistakable sounds  of  slumber.  Men  off  duty  were 
not  kept  awake  by  cold  and  m.oisture  in  summer. 
They  had  fashioned  for  themselves  comfortable  dor- 
mitories in  the  hard  earth  walls.  A  cot  in  an  offi- 
cer's bed  chamber  was  indicated  as  mine.     The  walls 


3o8  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

had  been  hung  with  cuts  from  illustrated  papers  and 
bagging  spread  on  the  floor  to  make  it  "  home-like." 
He  lay  down  on  the  floor  because  he  was  nearer  the 
door  in  case  he  had  to  respond  to  an  alarm;  besides, 
he  said  I  would  soon  appreciate  that  I  was  not  the 
object  of  any  favouritism.  So  I  did.  It  was  a 
trench-made  cot,  fashioned  by  some  private  of  engi- 
neers, I  fancy,  who  had  Germans  rather  than  the 
American  cousin  in  mind. 

"  The  wall  side  of  the  rib  that  runs  down  the 
middle  is  the  comfortable  side,  I  have  found,"  said  my 
host.  "  It  may  not  appear  so  at  first,  but  you  will 
find  that  it  works  out  that  way." 

Nevertheless,  one  slept,  his  last  recollection  that  of 
sniping  shots,  to  be  awakened  with  the  first  streaks  of 
day  by  the  sound  of  a  fusillade  —  the  "  morning  hate  " 
or  the  "  morning  strafe,"  as  it  was  called.  After 
the  vigil  of  darkness  it  breaks  the  monotony  to  sa- 
lute the  dawn  with  a  burst  of  rifle-shots.  Eyes 
strained  through  the  mist  over  the  wheat-field  watch- 
ing for  some  one  of  the  enemy  who  may  be  exposing 
himself,  unconscious  that  it  is  light  enough  for  him 
to  be  visible.  Objects  which  are  not  men  but  look  as 
if  they  might  be  in  the  hazy  distance,  called  for  at- 
tention on  the  chance.  For  ten  minutes,  perhaps,  the 
serenade  lasted,  and  then  things  settled  down  to  the 
normal.  The  men  were  yawning  and  stirring  from 
their  dugouts.  After  the  muster  they  would  take  the 
places  of  those  who  had  been  "  on  the  bridge  "  through 
the  night. 

"  It's  a  case  of  how  little  water  you  can  wash  with, 
Isn't  it?"  I  said  to  the  cook,  who  appreciated  my 
thoughtfulness  when  I  made  shift  with  a  dipperful,  as 
I  had  done  on  desert  journeys.     We  were  in  a  trench 


TRENCHES  IN  SUMMER  309 

that  was  inundated  with  water  in  winter,  and  not 
more  than  two  miles  from  a  town  which  had  a  water 
system.  But  bringing  a  water  supply  in  pails  along 
narrow  trenches  is  a  poor  pastime,  though  better  than 
bringing  it  up  under  the  rifle-sights  of  snipers  across 
the  fields  back  of  the  trenches. 

"  Don't  expect  much  for  breakfast,"  said  the  strafer 
of  the  chicken.  But  it  was  eggs  and  bacon,  the  Brit- 
ish stand-by  in  all  weathers,  at  home  and  abroad. 

J was   going  to   turn   in   and   sleep.     These 

youngsters  could  sleep  at  any  time;  for  one  hour,  or 
two  hours,  or  five,  or  ten,  if  they  had  a  chance.  A 
sudden  burst  of  rifle-fire  was  the  alarm  clock  which 
always  promptly  awakened  them.  The  recollection 
of  cheery  hospitality  and  their  fine,  buoyant  spirit  is 
even  clearer  now  than  when  I  left  the  trench. 


XXI 

A    SCHOOL   IN   BOMBING 

War  specialism  —  A  school  on  a  French  farm  —  A  lesson  — "  Bomb- 
ing them  out  " —  Fighting  in  zigzag  traverses  —  Cold  steel  — The 
bomb  storehouse  —  All  shapes  and  sizes  —  Revivals  of  Roman 
legionary  days  —  A  home-made  product  —  A  fool-proof,  up  to 
the  minute  and  popular   (except  with  the  "Boches")  variety. 

It  was  at  a  bombing  school  on  a  French  farm,  where 
chosen  soldiers  brought  back  from  the  trenches  were 
being  trained  in  the  use  of  the  anarchists'  weapon, 
which  has  now  become  as  respectable  as  the  rifle.  The 
war  has  steadily  developed  specialism.  M.B.  degrees 
for  Master  Bombers  are  not  beyond  the  range  of  pos- 
sibilities. 

Present  was  the  chief  instructor,  a  young  Scotch 
subaltern  with  blue  eyes,  a  pleasant  smile,  and  a  Cock 
o'  the  North  spirit.  He  might  have  been  twenty 
years  old,  though  he  did  not  look  it.  On  his  breast 
was  the  purple  and  white  ribbon  of  the  new  order 
of  the  Mihtary  Cross,  which  you  get  for  doing  some- 
thing in  this  war  which  would  have  won  you  a  Vic?, 
toria  Cross  in  one  of  the  other  wars. 

Also  present  was  the  assistant  instructor,  a  sergeant 
of  regulars  —  and  very  much  of  a  regular  —  who  had 
three  ribbons  which  he  had  won  In  previous  campaigns. 
He,  too,  had  blue  eyes,  bland  blue  eyes.  These  two 
understood  each  other. 

"  If  you  don't  drop  it,  why,  it's  all  right!  "  said  the 
sergeant.     "  Of  course,  if  you  do  — " 

I  did  not  drop  it. 

**  And  when  you  throw  it,  sir,  you  must  look  out  and 

310 


A  SCHOOL  IN  BOMBING  311 

not  hit  the  man  behind  and  knock  the  bomb  out  of  your 
hand.  That  has  happened  before  to  an  absent-minded 
fellow  who  was  about  to  toss  one  at  the  Boches,  and 
it  doesn't  do  to  be  absent-minded  when  you  throw 
bombs." 

*'  They  say  that  you  sometimes  pick  up  the  Ger- 
man bombs  and  chuck  them  back  before  they  explode," 
it  was  suggested. 

"  Yes,  sir,  I've  read  things  like  that  in  some  of  the 
accounts  of  the  reporters  who  write  from  Somewhere 
in  France.  You  don't  happen  to  know  where  that  is, 
sir  ?  All  I  can  say  is  that  if  you  are  going  to  do  it  you 
must  be  quick  about  it.  I  shouldn't  advise  delaying 
your  decision,  sir,  or  perhaps  when  you  reached 
down  to  pick  it  up,  neither  your  hand  nor  the  bomb 
would  be  there.  They'd  have  gone  off  together, 
sir. 

"  Have  you  ever  been  hurt  in  your  handling  of 
bombs?  "  I  asked. 

Surprise  in  the  bland  blue  eyes. 

"  Oh,  no,  sir  I  Bombs  are  well  behaved  if  you 
treat  them  right.  It's  all  in  being  thoughtful  and 
considerate  of  theml"  Meanwhile,  he  was  jerking 
at  some  kind  of  %  patent  fuse  set  in  a  shell  of  high 
explosive.  "  This  is  a  poor  kind,  sir.  It's  been  dis- 
carded, but  I  thoujfht  that  you  might  like  to  see  It. 
Never  did  like  it.     Always  making  trouble !  " 

More  distance  between  the  audience  and  the  per- 
former. 

"Now  I've  got  it,  sir  —  get  down,  sir!" 

The  audience  carried  out  Instructions  to  the  letter, 
as  army  regulations  require.  It  got  behind  the  pro- 
tection of  one  of  the  practice-trench  traverses.  He 
threw   the    discard   beyond   another   wall   of   earth. 


312  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

There  was  a  sharp  report,  a  burst  of  smoke,  and  some 
fragments  of  earth  were  tossed  Into  the  air. 

In  a  small  affair  of  two  hundred  yards  of  trench  a 
week  before,  it  was  estimated  that  the  British  and 
the  Germans  together  threw  about  five  thousand 
bombs  in  this  fashion.  It  was  enough  to  sadden  any 
Minister  of  Munitions.  However,  the  British  kept 
the  trench. 

"  Do  the  men  like  to  become  bombers?  "  I  asked  the 
subaltern. 

"  I  should  say  so !  It  puts  them  up  in  front.  It 
gives  them  a  chance  to  throw  something,  and  they 
don't  get  much  cricket  in  France,  you  see.  We  had 
a  pupil  here  last  week,  who  broke  the  throwing  record 
for  distance.  He  was  as  pleased  as  Punch  with  him- 
self. A  first-class  bombing  detachment  has  a  lot  of 
pride  of  corps." 

To  bomb  soon  became  as  common  a  verb  with  the 
army  as  to  bayonet.  "  We  bombed  them  out  "  meant 
a  section  of  trench  taken.  As  you  know,  a  trench  is 
dug  and  built  with  sandbags  in  zigzag  traverses.  In 
following  the  course  of  a  trench  it  Is  as  if  you  fol- 
lowed the  sides  of  the  squares  of  a  checkerboard  up 
and  down  and  across  on  the  same  tier  of  squares. 
The  square  itself  is  a  bank  of  earth,  with  the  cut  on 
either  side  and  in  front  of  it.  When  a  bombing  party 
bombs  their  way  into  possession  of  a  section  of  Ger- 
man trench,  there  are  Germans  under  cover  of  the  tra- 
verses on  either  side.  They  are  waiting  around  the 
corner  to  shoot  the  first  British  head  that  shows  it- 
self. 

"  It  is  Important  that  you  and  not  the  Boches  chuck 
the  bombs  over  first,"  explained  the  subaltern. 
"  Also,  that  you  get  them  into  the  right  traverse,  or 


A  SCHOOL  IN  BOMBING  313 

they  may  be  as  troublesome  to  you  as  to  the  en- 
emy." 

With  bombs  bursting  in  their  faces,  the  Germans 
who  are  not  put  out  of  action  are  blinded  and  stunned. 
In  the  moment  when  they  are  thus  off  guard,  the  ag- 
gressors leap  around  the  corner. 

"And  then?" 

"  Stick  'em,  sir!  "  said  the  matter-of-fact  sergeant. 
"  Yes,  the  cold  steel  is  best.  And  do  it  first !  As  Mr. 
MacPherson  said,  it's  very  important  to  do  it  first." 

It  has  been  found  that  something  short  Is  handy 
for  this  kind  of  work.  In  such  cramped  quarters  — 
a  ditch  six  feet  deep  and  from  two  to  three  feet  broad 
—  the  rifle  is  an  awkward  length  to  permit  of  prompt 
and  skilful  use  of  the  bayonet. 

**  Yes,  sir,  you  can  mix  it  up  better  with  something 
handy  —  to  think  that  British  soldiers  would  come  to 
fighting  like  assassins !  "  said  the  sergeant.  "  You 
must  be  spry  on  such  occasions.  It's  no  time  for  wool- 
gathering." 

Not  a  smile  from  him  or  the  subaltern  all  the  time. 
They  were  the  kind  you  would  like  to  have  along  in 
a  tight  corner,  whether  you  had  to  fight  with  knives, 
fists,  or  seventeen-inch  howitzers. 

The  sergeant  took  us  Into  the  storehouse  where  he 
kept  his  supply  of  bombs. 

"  What  if  a  German  shell  should  strike  your  store- 
house? "  I  asked. 

"  Then,  sir,  I  expect  that  most  of  the  bombs  would 
be  exploded.  Bombs  are  very  peculiar  in  their  habits. 
What  do  you  think,  sir?  " 

It  was  no  trouble  to  show  stock,  as  clerks  at  the 
stores  say.  He  brought  forth  all  the  different  kinds 
of  bombs  that  British  ingenuity  has  Invented  —  but  no, 


314  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

not  all  invented.  These  would  mount  Into  the  thou- 
sands. Every  British  inventor  who  knows  anything 
about  explosives  has  tried  his  hand  at  a  new  kind  of 
bomb.  One  means  all  the  kinds  which  the  British 
War  Office  has  considered  worth  a  practice  test.  The 
spectator  was  allowed  to  handle  each  one  as  much  as 
he  pleased.  There  had  been  occasions,  that  boyish 
Scotch  subaltern  told  me,  when  the  men  who  were  ex- 
amining the  products  of  British  ingenuity  —  well,  the 
subaltern  had  sandy  hair,  too,  which  heightened  the 
effect  of  his  blue  eye. 

There  were  yellow  and  green  and  blue  and  black 
and  striped  bombs;  egg-shaped,  barrel-shaped,  conical, 
and  concave  bombs;  bombs  that  were  exploded  by  pull- 
ing a  string  and  by  pressing  a  button  —  all  these  to  be 
thrown  by  hand,  without  mentioning  grenades  and 
other  larger  varieties  to  be  thrown  by  mechanical 
means,  which  would  have  made  a  Chinese  warrior  of 
Confucius'  time  or  a  Roman  legionary  feel  at  home. 

"  This  was  the  first-born,"  the  subaltern  explained, 
"  the  first  thing  we  could  lay  our  hands  on  when  the 
close  quarters'  trench  warfare  began." 

It  was  as  out  of  date  as  grandfather's  smooth- 
bore, the  tin-pot  bomb  that  both  sides  used  early  in 
the  winter.  A  wick  was  attached  to  the  high  explo- 
sive, wrapped  in  cloth  and  stuck  in  an  ordinary  army 
jam  can. 

"  Quite  home-made,  as  you  see,  sir,"  remarked  the 
sergeant.  "  Used  to  fix  them  up  ourselves  in  the 
trenches  in  odd  hours  —  saved  burying  the  refuse  jam 
tins  according  to  medical  corps  directions  —  and  you 
threw  them  at  the  Boches.  Had  to  use  a  match  to 
light  it.  Very  old-fashioned,  sir.  I  wonder  if  that 
old  fuse  has  got  damp.     No,  it's  going  all  right " — 


A  SCHOOL  IN  BOMBING  315 

and  he  threw  the  jam  pot,  which  made  a  good  ex- 
plosion. Later,  when  he  began  hammering  the  end 
of  another,  he  looked  up  in  mild  surprise  at  the  dig- 
nified back-stepping  of  the  spectators. 

"  Is  that  fuse  out?  "  some  one  asked. 

"  Yes,  sir.  Of  course,  sir,"  he  replied.  "  It's 
safer.  But  here  is  the  best;  we're  discarding  the  oth- 
ers," he  went  on,  as  he  picked  up  a  bomb. 

It  was  a  pleasure  to  throw  this  crowning  achieve- 
ment of  experiments.  It  fitted  your  hand  nicely;  it 
threw  easily;  it  did  the  business;  it  was  fool-proof 
against  a  man  in  love  or  a  war-poet. 

"  We  saw  as  soon  as  this  st}'le  came  out,"  said  the 
sergeant,  *'  that  it  was  bound  to  be  popular.  Every- 
body asks  for  it  —  except  the  Boches,  sir." 


XXII 

MY   BEST  DAY  AT  THE   FRONT 

Planning  at  headquarters  —  Trench  maps  —  A  "hot  corner"  north 
of  Ypres  —  The  English  in  possession  —  Preparation  for  a  gas 
attack  —  Farming  behind  the  lines  —  Reaching  the  tornado  belt 
— "Policing  the  district" — Man  the  most  precious  machine  —  A 
general's  dugout  headquarters  —  First  aid  to  the  wounded  — 
Cave  men  at  home  —  The  scream  of  a  great  shell  —  A  close  call 

—  Galleries  to  the  front  —  The  philosophy  of  shell-fire  —  The 
flitting  planes  —  An  arc  of  shell  fire  —  Lace  work  of  puffs  from 
shrapnel  bursts — "Artillery  preparation  for  an  infantry  attack" 

—  Under  a  tornado  of  steel  hail. 

It  was  the  best  day  because  one  ran  the  gamut  of  the 
mechanics  and  emotions  of  modern  war  within  a  single 
experience  —  and  oh,  the  twinkle  in  that  staff  officer's 
eye! 

It  was  on  a  Monday  that  I  first  met  him  in  the  ball- 
room of  a  large  chateau.  Here  another  officer  was 
talking  over  a  telephone  in  an  explicit,  businesslike 
fashion  about  "  sending  up  more  bombs,"  while  we 
looked  at  maps  spread  out  on  narrow.  Improvised 
tables,  such  as  are  used  for  a  buffet  at  a  reception. 
Those  maps  showed  all  the  British  trenches  and  all 
the  German  trenches  —  spider-web  like  lines  that  cun- 
ning human  spiaers  had  spun  with  spades  —  in  that 
region;  and  where  our  batteries  were  and  where  some 
of  the  German  batteries  were,  if  our  aeroplane  ob- 
servations were  correct. 

To  the  layman  they  were  simply  blue  prints,  such 
as  he  sees  in  the  office  of  an  engineer  or  an  architect, 
or  elaborate  printed  maps  with  many  blue  and  red  pen- 

316 


MY  BEST  DAY  AT  THE  FRONT    317 

clllings.  To  the  general  in  command  they  were  alive 
with  rifle-power  and  gun-power  and  other  powers  mys- 
terious to  us;  the  sword  with  which  he  thrust  and 
feinted  and  guarded  in  the  ceaseless  fencing  of  trench 
warfare,  while  higher  authorities  than  he  kept  their 
secrets  as  he  kept  his  and  bided  their  day. 

That  morning  one  of  the  battalions  which  had  its 
pencilled  place  on  the  map  had  taken  a  section  of 
trench  from  the  Germans  about  the  length  of  two  city 
blocks.  It  got  into  the  official  bulletins  of  both  sides 
several  times,  this  two  hundred  yards  at  Pilken  in 
the  everlastingly  "  hot  corner  "  north  of  Ypres.  So 
it  was  of  some  importance,  though  not  on  account  of 
its  length. 

To  take  two  hundred  yards  of  trench  because  it  is 
two  hundred  yards  of  trench  is  not  good  war,  tacticians 
agree.  Good  war  is  to  have  millions  of  shells  and 
vast  reserves  ready  and  to  go  in  over  a  broad  area  and 
keep  on  going  night  and  day,  with  a  Niagara  of  artil- 
lery, as  fresh  battalions  are  fed  into  the  conflict. 

But  the  Germans  had  command  of  some  rising 
ground  in  front  of  the  British  line  at  this  point.  They 
could  fire  down  into  our  trench  and  crosswise  of  it.  It 
was  as  if  we  were  in  the  alley  and  they  were  in  a  first- 
floor  window.  This  meant  many  casualties.  It  was 
man-economy  and  fire-economy  to  take  that  two  hun- 
dred yards.  A  section  of  trench  may  always  be  taken 
if  worth  while.  Reduce  it  to  dust  with  shells  and  then 
dash  into  the  breach  and  drive  the  enemy  back  from 
zigzag  traverse  to  traverse  with  bombs.  But  such  a 
small  action  requires  as  careful  planning  as  a  big  oper- 
ation of  other  days.  We  had  taken  the  two  hundred 
yards.  The  thing  was  to  hold  them.  That  is  always 
the  difficulty;  for  the  enemy  will  concentrate  his  gims 


3i8    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  give  you  the  same  dose  that  you  gave  him.  In  an 
hour  after  they  were  in,  the  British  soldiers,  who 
knew  exactly  what  they  had  to  do  and  how  to  do  it 
after  months  of  experience,  had  turned  the  wreck  of 
the  German  trenches  into  a  British  trench  which  faced 
toward  Berlin,  rather  than  Calais. 

In  their  official  bulletin  the  Germans  said  that  they 
had  recovered  the  trench.  They  did  recover  part  of 
it  for  a  few  hours.  It  was  then  that  the  commander 
on  the  German  side  must  have  sent  in  his  report  to 
catch  the  late  evening  editions.  Commanders  do  not 
like  to  confess  the  loss  of  trenches.  It  is  the  sort  of 
thing  that  makes  Headquarters  ask:  "What  is  the 
matter  with  you  over  there,  anyway?  "  There  was  a 
time  when  the  German  bulletins  about  the  Western 
front  seemed  rather  truthful;  but  of  late  they  have 
been  getting  into  bad  habits. 

The  British  general  knew  what  was  coming;  he 
knew  that  he  would  start  the  German  hornets  out  of 
their  nest  when  he  took  the  trench ;  he  knew,  too,  that 
he  could  rely  upon  his  men  to  hold  till  they  were  told 
to  retire  or  there  were  none  left  to  retire.  The  Brit- 
ish are  a  home-loving  people,  who  do  not  like  to  be 
changing  their  habitations.  In  succeeding  days  the 
question  up  and  down  the  lines  was,  "  Have  we  still 
got  that  trench?  "  Only  two  hundred  yards  of  ditch 
on  the  continent  of  Europe!  But  was  it  still  ours? 
Had  the  Germans  succeeded  in  "  strafing  "  us  out  of 
it  yet?  They  had  shelled  all  the  trenches  in  the  region 
of  the  lost  trench  and  had  made  three  determined 
and  unsuccessful  counter-attacks  when,  on  the  fifth  day, 
we  returned  to  the  chateau  to  ask  if  it  were  practicable 
to  visit  the  new  trench. 


MY  BEST  DAY  AT  THE  FRONT     319 

"  At  your  own  risk!  "  said  the  staff  officer.  If  wc 
preferred  we  could  sit  on  the  veranda  where  there 
were  easy  chairs,  on  a  pleasant  summer  day.  Very 
peaceful  the  sweep  of  the  well-kept  grounds  and  the 
shade  of  the  stately  trees  of  that  sequestered  world  of 
landscape.  vVho  was  at  war?  Why  was  any  one  at 
war?  Two  staff  automobiles  awaiting  orders  on  the 
drive  and  a  dust-laden  despatch  rider  with  messages, 
who  went  past  toward  the  rear  of  the  house,  were 
the  only  visual  evidence  of  war. 

The  staff  officer  served  the  three  of  us  with  helmets 
for  protection  in  case  we  got  into  a  gas  attack.  He 
said  that  we  might  enter  our  front  trenches  at  a  cer- 
tain point  and  then  work  our  way  as  near  the  new 
part  as  we  could;  division  headquarters,  four  or  five 
miles  distant,  would  show  us  the  way.  It  was  then 
that  the  twinkle  in  the  staff  officer's  eye  as  it  looked 
straight  into  yours  became  manifest.  You  can  never 
tell,  I  have  learned,  just  what  a  twinkle  in  a  British 
staff  officer's  eye  may  portend.  These  fellows  who 
are  promoted  up  from  the  trenches  to  join  the  "  brain- 
trust  "  in  the  chateau,  know  a  great  deal  more  about 
what  is  going  on  than  you  can  learn  by  standing  in 
the  road  far  from  the  front  and  listening  to  the  sound 
of  the  guns.  We  encountered  a  twinkle  in  another 
eye  at  division  headquarters,  which  may  have  been 
telephoned  ahead  along  with  the  instructions,  "  At 
their  own  risk." 

There  are  British  staff  officers  who  would  not  mind 
pulling  a  correspondent's  leg  on  a  summer  day ;  though, 
perhaps,  it  was  really  the  Germans  who  pulled  ours, 
in  this  instance.  Somebody  did  remark  at  some  head- 
quarters, I  recall,  that,  "  You  never  know !  "  which 


320    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

shows  that  staff  officers  do  not  know  everything.  The 
Germans  possess  half  the  knowledge  —  and  they  are 
at  great  pains  not  to  part  with  their  half. 

We  proceeded  in  our  car  along  country  roads,  quiet, 
normal  country  roads,  off  the  main  highway.  It  has 
been  written  again  and  again,  and  it  cannot  be  written 
too  many  times,  that  life  is  going  on  as  usual  in  the 
rear  of  the  army.  Nothing  could  be  more  wonderful 
and  yet  nothing  more  natural.  All  the  men  of  fight- 
ing age  were  absent.  White-capped  grandmothers, 
too  old  to  join  the  rest  of  the  family  in  the  fields,  sat 
in  doorways  sewing.  Everybody  was  at  work  and 
the  crops  were  growing.  One  never  tires  of  remark- 
ing the  fact.  It  brings  you  back  from  the  destruc- 
tive orgy  of  war  to  the  simple,  constructive  things 
of  life.  An  Industrious  people  go  on  cultivating  the 
land  and  the  land  keeps  on  producing.  It  is  pleasant 
to  think  that  the  crops  of  Northern  France  were  good 
in  19 1 5.  That  is  cheering  news  from  home  for  the 
soldiers  of  France  at  the  front. 

At  an  Indicated  point  we  left  the  car  to  go  forward 
on  foot,  and  the  chauffeur  was  told  to  wait  for  us 
at  another  point.  If  the  car  went  any  farther  it 
might  draw  shell-fire.  Army  authorities  know  how 
far  they  may  take  cars  with  reasonable  safety  as  well 
as  a  pilot  knows  the  rocks  and  shoals  at  a  harbour 
entrance. 

There  was  an  end  of  white-capped  grandmothers  in 
doorways;  an  end  of  people  working  in  the  fields. 
Rents  in  the  roofless  walls  of  unoccupied  houses 
stared  at  the  passerby.  We  were  In  a  dead  land. 
One  of  two  soldiers  whom  we  met  coming  from  the 
opposite  direction  pointed  at  what  looked  like  a  small 
miner's  cabin  half  covered  with  earth,  screened  by  a 


MY  BEST  DAY  AT  THE  FRONT     321 

tree,  as  the  next  headquart::s  which  we  were  seeking 
in  our  progress. 

It  was  not  for  sightseers  to  take  the  time  of  the 
general,  who  received  us  at  the  door  of  his  dugout. 
The  German  guns  had  concentrated  on  a  section  of 
his  trenches  in  a  way  that  indicated  that  another  at- 
tack was  coming.  One  company  already  had  suffered 
heav7  losses.  It  was  an  hour  of  responsibility  for 
the  general,  isolated  in  the  midst  of  silent  fields  and 
houses,  waiting  for  news  from  a  region  hidden  from 
his  view  by  trees  and  hedges  in  that  flat  country.  He 
might  not  move  from  headquarters,  for  then  he  would 
be  out  of  communication  with  his  command.  His 
men  were  being  pounded  by  shells  and  the  inexorable 
law  of  organisation  kept  him  at  the  rear.  Up  in  the 
trench  he  might  have  been  one  helpless  human  being 
in  a  havoc  of  shells  which  had  cut  the  wires.  His 
place  was  where  he  could  be  in  touch  with  his  subordi- 
nates and  his  superiors. 

True,  we  wanted  to  go  to  the  trench  that  the  Ger- 
mans had  lost  and  his  section  was  the  short  cut. 
Modesty  was  not  the  only  reason  for  not  taking  it. 
As  we  started  along  a  road  parallel  to  the  front,  the 
head  of  a  soldier  popped  out  of  the  earth  and  told  us 
that  orders  were  to  walk  in  the  ditch.  One  judged 
that  he  was  less  concerned  with  our  fate  than  with  the 
likelihood  of  our  drawing  fire,  which  he  and  the  others 
in  a  concealed  trench  would  suffer  after  we  had  passed 
on. 

There  were  three  of  us,  two  correspondents,  L 

and  myself,    and   R ,   an   officer,   which   is   quite 

enough  for  an  expedition  of  this  kind.  Now  we  were 
finding  our  own  way,  with  the  help  of  the  large  scale 
army  map  which  had  every  house,  every  farm,  and 


322  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

every  group  of  trees  marked.  The  farms  had  been 
given  such  names  as  Joffre,  Kitchener,  French,  Botha, 
and  others  which  the  Germans  would  not  Hke,  One 
cut  across  fields  with  the  same  confidence  that,  follow- 
ing a  diagram  of  city  streets  in  a  guidebook,  he  turns 
to  the  left  for  the  public  library  and  to  the  right  for 
the  museum. 

Our  own  guns  were  speaking  here  and  there  from 
their  hiding-places;  and  overhead  an  occasional  Ger- 
man shrapnel  burst.  This  seemed  a  waste  of  the 
Kaiser's  munitions,  as  there  was  no  one  in  sight.  Yet 
there  was  purpose  in  the  desultory  scattering  of  bullets 
from  on  high.  They  were  policing  the  district;  they 
were  warning  the  hated  British  in  reserve  not  to  play 
cricket  in  those  fields  or  march  along  those  deserted 
roads. 

The  more  bother  In  taking  cover  that  the  Germans 
can  make  the  British,  the  better  they  like  it;  and  the 
British  return  the  compliment  in  kind.  Everything 
that  harasses  your  enemy  is  counted  to  the  good.  If 
every  shell  fired  had  killed  a  man  in  this  war,  there 
would  be  no  soldiers  left  to  fight  on  either  side;  yet 
never  have  shells  been  so  important  in  war  before. 
They  can  reach  the  burrowing  human  beings  in  shel- 
ters which  are  bullet-proof;  they  are  the  omnipresent 
threat  of  death.  The  firing  of  shells  from  batteries 
securely  hidden  and  emplaced  represents  no  cost  of 
life  to  your  side,  only  cost  of  material;  which  ridicules 
the  foolish  conclusion  that  machinery  and  not  men 
count.  It  is  because  man  is  still  the  most  precious 
machine  —  a  machine  that  money  cannot  reproduce  — 
that  gun  machinery  is  so  much  in  favour,  and  every 
commander  wants  to  use  shells  as  freely  as  you  use 
city  water  when  you  don't  pay  for  it  by  metre. 


MY  BEST  DAY  AT  THE  FRONT     323 

Now  another  headquarters  and  another  general, 
also  isolated  in  a  dugout,  holding  the  reins  of  his 
wires  over  a  section  of  line  adjoining  that  of  the  one 
we  had  just  left.  Before  we  proceeded  we  must  look 
over  his  shelter  from  shell-storms.  The  only  time 
that  these  British  generals  become  boastful  is  over 
their  dugouts.  They  take  all  the  pride  in  them  of 
the  man  who  has  bought  a  plot  of  land  and  built 
himself  a  home;  and  like  him,  they  keep  on  making 
improvements  and  calling  attention  to  them, 

I  must  say  that  this  was  one  of  the  best  shelters  I 
have  seen  anywhere  in  the  tornado  belt;  and  what- 
ever I  am  not,  I  am  certainly  an  expert  in  dugouts. 
Of  course,  this  general,  too,  said,  "  At  your  own 
risk!  "  He  was  good  enough  to  send  a  young  offi- 
cer with  us  up  to  the  trenches;  then  we  should  not 
make  any  mistakes  about  direction  if  we  wanted  to 
reach  the  neighbourhood  of  the  two  hundred  yards 
which  we  had  taken  from  the  Germans.  When  we 
thanked  him  and  said  "  Good-bye!  "  he  remarked: 

"  We  never  say  good-bye  up  here.  It  does  not 
sound  pleasant.  Make  it  au  revoir."  And  he,  too, 
had  a  twinkle  in  his  eye. 

By  this  time  one  leg  ought  to  have  been  so  much 
longer  than  the  other  that  one  would  have  walked  in 
a  circle  if  he  had  not  had  a  guide. 

That  battery  which  had  been  near  the  dugout  kept 
on  with  its  regular  firing,  its  shells  sweeping  over- 
head. We  had  not  gone  far  before  we  came  to  a 
board  nailed  to  a  tree  with  the  caution,  "  Keep  to  the 
right!  "  If  you  went  to  the  left  you  might  be  seen 
by  the  enemy,  though  we  were  seeing  nothing  of  him, 
nor  of  our  own  trenches  yet.  Every  square  yard  of 
this  ground  had  been  tried  out  by  actual  experience, 


324  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

at  the  cost  of  dead  and  wounded  men,  till  safe  lanes 
of  approach  had  been  found. 

Next  was  a  clearing  station,  where  the  wounded  are 
brought  In  from  the  trenches  for  transfer  to  ambu- 
lances, A  glance  at  the  burden  on  a  stretcher  just 
arriv^ing  automatically  framed  the  word,  "  shell-fire!  " 
The  stains  overrunning  on  tanned  skin  beyond  the 
edges  of  the  white  bandage  were  a  bright  red  In  the 
sunlight.  A  khaki  blouse  torn  open,  or  a  trousers 
leg,  or  a  sleeve  cut  down  the  seam,  revealing  the 
white  of  the  first  aid  and  a  splash  of  red,  means  one 
man  wounded;  and  by  the  ones  the  thousands  come. 

Fifty  wounded  men  on  the  floor  of  a  clearing  station 
and  the  Individual  Is  lost  In  the  crowd.  When  you 
see  the  one  borne  past.  If  there  Is  nothing  else  to 
distract  attention  you  always  ask  two  questions :  Will 
he  die?  Has  he  been  maimed  for  life?  If  the  an- 
swers to  both  are  No,  you  feel  a  sense  of  triumph,  as 
If  you  had  seen  a  human  play,  built  skilfully  around  a 
life  to  arouse  your  emotions,  turn  out  happily. 

The  man  has  fought  In  an  honourable  cause;  he 
has  felt  the  very  touch  of  death's  fingers.  How 
happy  he  Is  when  he  knows  that  he  will  get  well!  In 
prospect,  as  his  wound  heals  Into  the  scar  which  will 
be  the  lasting  decoration  of  his  courage.  Is  home  and 
all  that  It  means  and  those  In  It  mean  to  him.  What 
kind  of  a  home  has  he,  this  private  soldier?  In  the 
slums,  with  a  slattern  wife?  Or  In  a  cottage  with  a 
flower  garden  In  front,  only  a  few  minutes'  walk  from 
the  green  fields  of  the  English  countryside?  —  but  we 
set  out  to  tell  you  about  the  kind  of  Inferno  in  which 
this  man  got  his  splash  of  red. 

We  come  to  the  banks  of  a  canal  which  has  carried 
the  traffic  of  the  Low  Countries  for  many  centuries; 


MY  BEST  DAY  AT  THE  FRONT     325 

the  canal  where  the  British  and  French  had  fought 
many  a  Thermopylae  in  the  last  eight  months.  Along 
its  banks  run  rows  of  fine  trees  narrowing  in  perspec- 
tive before  the  eye.  Some  have  been  cut  in  two  by 
the  direct  hit  of  a  heavy  shell  and  others  splintered 
down,  bit  by  bit.  Others  still  standing  have  been  hit 
many  times.  There  are  cuts  as  fresh  as  if  the  chip 
had  just  flown  from  the  axeman's  blow,  and  there  are 
scars  from  cuts  made  last  autumn  which  nature's  sap, 
rising  as  it  does  in  the  veins  of  wounded  men,  has 
healed  while  it  sent  forth  leaves  in  answer  to  the  call 
of  spring  from  the  remaining  branches. 

In  this  neighbourhood  the  earth  is  many-mouthed 
with  caves  and  cut  with  passages  running  from  cave 
to  cave,  so  that  the  inhabitants  may  go  and  come  hid- 
den from  sight.  Jawbone  and  Hairyman  and  Low- 
brow, of  the  stone  age,  would  be  at  home  here,  squat- 
ting on  their  hunkers  and  tearing  at  their  raw  kill 
with  their  long  incisors.  It  does  not  seem  a  place  for 
men  who  walk  erect,  wear  woven  fabrics,  enjoy  a 
written  language,  and  use  soap  and  safety  razors. 
One  would  not  be  surprised  to  see  some  figure  swing 
down  by  a  long,  hairy  arm  from  a  branch  of  a  tree 
and  leap  on  all  fours  into  one  of  the  caves,  where  he 
would  receive  a  gibbering  welcome  to  the  bosom  of  his 
family. 

Not  so !  Huddled  in  these  holes  in  the  earth  are 
free-born  men  of  an  old  civilisation,  who  read  the 
daily  papers  and  eat  jam  on  their  bread.  They  do 
not  want  to  be  there,  but  they  would  not  consider 
themselves  worthy  of  the  inheritance  of  free-born 
men  if  they  were  not.  Only  civilised  man  is  capable 
of  such  stoicism  as  theirs.  They  have  reverted  to  the 
cave-dweller's  protection  because  their  civilisation  is 


326    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

so  highly  developed  that  they  can  throw  a  piece  of 
steel  weighing  anywhere  from  eighteen  to  two  thou- 
sand pounds  anywhere  from  five  to  twenty  miles  with 
merciless  accuracy,  and  because  the  flesh  of  man  is 
even  more  tender  than  in  the  cave-dweller's  time,  not 
to  mention  that  his  brain-case  is  a  larger  target. 

An  officer  calls  our  attention  to  a  shell-proof  shelter 
with  the  civic  pride  of  a  member  of  a  Chamber  of 
Commerce  pointing  out  the  new  Union  Station. 

"  Not  even  a  high  explosive  " —  the  kind  that  bursts 
on  impact  after  penetration  — "  could  get  into  that!  " 
he  says.  "  We  make  them  for  generals  and  colonels 
and  those  who  have  precious  heads  on  their  shoul- 
ders." 

With  material  and  labour,  the  same  might  have 
been  constructed  for  the  soldiers;  which  brings  us 
back  to  the  question  of  munitions  in  the  economic  bal- 
ance against  a  human  life.  It  was  the  first  shelter  of 
this  kind  which  I  had  seen.  One  never  goes  up  to  the 
trenches  without  seeing  something  new.  The  defen- 
sive is  tireless  in  its  ingenuity  in  saving  lives  and  the 
offensive  in  taking  them.  Safeguards  and  salvage 
compete  with  destruction.  And  what  labour  all  that 
excavation  and  construction  represented  —  the  cumu- 
lative labour  of  months  and  day-by-day  repairs  of  the 
damage  done  by  shells.  After  a  bombardment,  dig 
out  the  filled  trenches  and  renew  the  smashed  dugouts 
to  be  ready  for  another  go ! 

The  walls  of  that  communication  trench  were  two 
feet  above  our  heads.  We  noticed  that  all  the  men 
were  in  their  dugouts ;  none  w^ere  walking  about  in  the 
open.  One  knew  the  meaning  of  this  barometer  — 
stormy.  The  German  gunners  were  "  strafing  quite 
lively  "   this  afternoon. 


MY  BEST  DAY  AT  THE  FRONT     327 

Already  we  had  noticed  many  shells  bursting  five 
or  six  hundred  yards  away,  in  the  direction  of  the 
new  British  trench;  but  at  that  distance  they  do  not 
count.  Then  a  railroad  train  seemed  to  have  jumped 
the  track  and  started  to  fly.  Fortunately  and  unfor- 
tunately, sound  travels  faster  than  big  shells  of  low 
velocity;  fortunately,  because  it  gives  you  time  to  be 
undignified  in  taking  cover;  unfortunately,  because  it 
gives  you  a  fraction  of  a  second  to  reflect  whether 
or  not  that  shell  has  your  name  and  your  number  on 
Dugout  Street.  I  was  certain  that  it  was  a  big  shell, 
of  the  kind  that  will  blow  a  dugout  to  pieces.  Any 
one  who  had  never  heard  a  shell  before  would  have 
*'  scrooched,"  as  the  small  boys  say,  as  Instinctively  as 
you  draw  back  when  the  through  express  tears  past 
the  station.  It  is  the  kind  of  scream  that  makes  you 
want  to  roll  yourself  into  a  package  about  the  size 
of  a  pea,  while  you  feel  as  tall  and  large  as  a  cathe- 
dral, judged  by  the  sensation  that  travels  down  your 
backbone. 

Once  I  was  being  hoisted  up  a  cliff  in  a  basket,  when 
the  rope  on  the  creaking  windlass  above  shpped  a 
few  Inches.  Well,  it  is  like  that,  or  like  taking  a  false 
step  on  the  edge  of  a  precipice.  Is  the  clock  about 
to  strike  twelve  or  not?  Not  this  time!  The  burst 
was  thirty  yards  away,  along  the  path  we  had  just  tra- 
versed, and  the  sound  of  it  was  like  the  burst  of  a 
shell  and  like  nothing  else  in  the  world,  just  as  the 
swirling,  boring,  growing  scream  of  a  shell  is  like 
no  other  scream  in  the  world.  A  gigantic  hammer- 
head sweeps  through  the  air  and  breaks  a  steel  drum- 
head. 

If  we  had  come  along  half  a  minute  later  we  should 
have  had  a  better  view,  and  perhaps  now  we  should 


328  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

have  been  on  a  bed  In  a  hospital  worrying  how  we 
were  going  to  pay  the  rent,  or  In  the  place  where, 
hopefully,  we  have  no  worries  at  all.  Between  walls 
of  earth  the  report  was  deadened  to  our  ears  In  the 
same  way  as  a  revolver  report  In  an  adjoining  room; 
and  not  much  earth  had  gone  down  the  backs  of  our 
necks  from  the  concussion. 

Looking  over  the  parapet,  we  saw  a  cloud  of  thick, 
black  smoke;  and  we  heard  the  outcry  of  a  man  who 
had  been  hit.  That  was  all.  The  shell  might  have 
struck  nearer  without  our  having  seen  or  heard  any 
more.  Shut  In  by  the  gallery  walls,  one  knows  as 
little  of  what  happens  In  an  adjoining  cave  as  a  clam 
buried  In  the  sand  knows  of  what  is  happening  to  a 
neighbour  clam.  A  young  soldier  came  half  stum- 
bling into  the  nearest  dugout.  He  was  shaking  his 
head  and  batting  his  ears  as  If  he  had  sand  In  them. 
Evidently  he  was  returning  to  his  home  cave  from  a 
call  on  a  neighbour  which  had  brought  him  close  to 
the  burst. 

"  That  must  have  been  about  six-  or  seven-Inch,"  I 
said  to  the  officer,  trying  to  be  moderate  and  casual 
in  my  estimate,  which  Is  the  correct  form  on  such  oc- 
casions.    My  actual  impression  was  forty-Inch. 

"  Nine  Inch,  h.  e.,"  replied  the  expert.  This  was 
gratifying.  It  was  the  first  time  that  I  had  been  that 
near  to  a  nine-inch  shell  explosion.  Its  "  eat-'em- 
alive  "  frightfulness  was  depressing.  But  the  expe- 
rience was  worth  having.  One  wants  all  the  expe- 
riences there  are  —  but  only  "  close."  A  delightful 
word  that  word  close,  at  the  front  1 

But  the  Germans  were  generous  that  afternoon. 
Another  big  scream  seemed  aimed  at  my  own  head. 


MY  BEST  DAY  AT  THE  FRONT     329 

L disagreed  with  me;  he  said  that  it  was  aimed  at 

his.  We  did  not  argue  the  matter  to  the  point  of  a 
personal  quarrel,  for  it  might  have  got  both  our  heads. 
It  burst  back  of  the  trench  about  as  far  away  as  the 
other  shell.  After  all,  a  trench  is  a  pretty  narrow 
ribbon,  even  on  a  gunner's  large  scale  map,  to  hit. 
It  is  wonderful  how,  firing  at  such  long  ranges,  he 
is  able  to  hit  the  trench  at  all. 

This  was  all  of  the  nine-inch  style,  for  the  time 
being.  We  got  some  fours  and  fives  in  our  neighbour- 
hood, as  we  walked  along.  Three  bursting  as  near 
together  as  the  ticks  of  a  clock,  made  almost  no  smoke 
as  they  brought  some  tree-limbs  down  and  tore  away 
a  section  of  a  trunk.  Then  the  thunder  storm  moved 
on  to  another  part  of  the  line.  Only,  unlike  the 
thunder  storms  of  nature,  this,  which  is  man-made 
and  controlled  as  a  fireman  controls  the  nozzle  of  his 
hose,  may  sweep  back  again  and  yet  again  over  its 
path.  All  depends  upon  the  decision  of  a  German 
artillery  ofl^cer,  just  as  whether  or  not  a  flower  bed 
shall  get  another  sprinkle  depends  upon  the  will  of 
the  gardener. 

We  were  glad  to  turn  out  of  the  support  trench  into 
a  communication  trench  leading  toward  the  front 
trench ;  into  another  gallery  cut  deep  in  the  fields,  with 
scattered  shell-pits  on  either  side.  Still  more  soldiers, 
leaning  against  the  walls  or  seated  with  their  legs 
stretched  out  across  the  bottom  of  the  ditch;  more 
waiting  soldiers,  only  strung  out  in  a  line  and  as  used 
to  the  passing  of  shells  as  people  living  along  the 
elevated  railroad  line  to  the  passing  of  trains.  They 
did  not  look  up  at  the  screams  boring  the  air  any  more 
than  one  who  lives  under  the  trains  looks  up  every 


330    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

time  that  one  passes.  Theirs  was  the  passivity  of  a 
queue  waiting  in  line  before  the  entrance  to  a  theatre 
or  a  ball-ground. 

A  senator  or  a  lawyer,  used  to  coolness  in  debate, 
or  to  presiding  over  great  meetings,  or  to  facing 
crowds,  who  happened  to  visit  the  trenches  could  have 
got  reassurance  from  the  faces  of  any  one  of  these 
private  soldiers,  who  had  been  trained  not  to  worry 
about  death  till  death  came.  Harrowing  every  one 
of  these  screams,  taken  by  itself.  Instinctively,  un- 
necessarily, you  dodged  at  those  which  were  low  — 
unnecessarily  because  they  were  from  British  guns. 
No  danger  from  them  unless  there  was  a  short  fuse. 
To  the  soldiers,  the  low  screams  brought  the  delight 
of  having  blows  struck  from  their  side  at  the  enemy, 
whom  they  themselves  could  not  strike  from  their  re- 
serve position. 

For  we  were  under  the  curving  sweep  of  both  the 
British  and  the  German  shells,  as  they  passed  in  the 
air  on  the  way  to  their  targets.  It  was  like  stand- 
ing between  two  railroad  tracks  with  trains  going  by 
in  opposite  directions.  You  came  to  differentiate  be- 
tween the  multitudinous  screams.  "  Ours !  "  you  ex- 
claimed, with  the  same  delight  as  when  you  see  that 
your  side  has  the  ball.  The  spirit  of  battle  contest 
rose  in  you.  There  was  an  end  of  philosophy. 
These  soldiers  in  the  trenches  were  your  partisans. 
Every  British  shell  was  working  for  them  and  for 
you,  giving  blow  for  blow. 

The  score  of  the  contest  of  battle  is  in  men  down; 
in  killed  and  wounded.  For  every  man  down  on  your 
side  you  want  two  men  down  on  the  enemy's.  Sport 
ceases.  It  is  the  fight  between  a  burglar  with  a  re- 
volver in  his  hand  and  a  knife  between  his  teeth;  and 


MY  BEST  DAY  AT  THE  FRONT     331 

a  wounded  man  brought  along  the  trench,  a  visible, 
intimate  proof  of  a  hit  by  the  enemy,  calls  for  more 
and  harder  blows. 

Looking  over  the  parapet  of  the  communication 
trench  you  saw  fields,  lifeless  except  for  the  singing 
birds  in  the  wheat,  who  had  also  the  spirit  of  battle. 
The  more  shells,  the  more  they  warble.  It  was  al- 
ways so  on  summer  days.  Between  the  screams  you 
heard  their  full-pitched  chorus,  striving  to  make  it- 
self heard  in  competition  with  the  song  of  German 
invasion  and  British  resistance.  Mostly,  the  birds 
seemed  to  take  cover  like  mankind;  but  I  saw  one 
sweep  up  from  the  golden  sea  of  ripening  grain  to- 
ward the  men-brothers  with  their  wings  of  cloth. 

Was  this  real,  or  was  it  extravaganza?  Painted 
airships  and  a  painted  summer  sky?  The  audacity  of 
those  British  airmen!  Two  of  them  were  spotting 
the  work  of  British  guns  by  their  shell-bursts  and 
watching  for  gun-flashes  which  would  reveal  concealed 
German  battery  positions,  and  whispering  results  by 
wireless  to  their  own  batteries. 

It  is  a  great  game.  Seven  or  eight  thousand  feet 
high,  directly  over  the  British  planes,  is  a  single  Taube 
cruising  for  the  same  purpose.  It  looks  like  a  beetle 
with  gossamer  wings  suspended  from  a  light  cloud. 
The  British  aviators  are  so  low  that  the  bull's-eye 
identification  marks  are  distinctly  visible  to  the  naked 
eye.  They  are  playing  in  and  out,  like  the  short  stop 
and  second  baseman  around  second,  there  in  the  very 
arc  of  the  passing  shells  from  both  sides  fired  at 
other  targets.  But  scores  of  other  shells  are  most 
decidedly  meant  for  them.  In  the  midst  of  a  lace- 
work  of  puffs  of  shrapnel  bursts,  which  slowly  spread 
in  the  still  air,  from  the  German  anti-aircraft  guns, 


332    JNIY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

they  dip  and  rise  and  turn  In  skilful  dodging.  At 
length,  one  retires  for  good;  probably  his  planecloth 
has  become  too  much  like  a  sieve  from  shrapnel  frag- 
ments to  remain  aloft  longer. 

Come  down,  Herr  Taube,  come  down  where  we 
can  have  a  shot  at  you !  Get  in  the  game !  You  can 
see  better  at  the  altitude  of  the  British  airmen!  But 
Herr  Taube  always  stays  high  —  the  Br'er  Fox  of  the 
air.  Of  course,  it  was  not  so  exciting  as  the  pictures 
that  artists  draw,  but  It  was  real. 

Every  kind  of  shell  was  being  fired,  low  and  high 
velocity,  small  and  large  calibre.  One-two-three-four 
In  quick  succession  as  the  roll  of  a  drum,  four  Ger- 
man shells  burst  in  line  up  in  the  region  where  we 
have  made  ourselves  masters  of  the  German  trench. 
British  shells  responded. 

"Ours  again!" 

But  I  had  already  ducked  before  I  spoke,  as  you 
might  if  a  pellet  of  steel  weighing  a  couple  of  hun- 
dred pounds,  going  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand  yards  a 
second  or  more,  passed  within  a  few  yards  of  your 
head  —  ducked  to  find  myself  looking  Into  the  face 
of  a  soldier,  who  was  smiling.  The  smile  was  not 
scornful,  but  It  was  at  least  amused  at  the  expense  of 
the  sightseer,  who  had  dodged  one  of  our  own  shells. 
In  addition  to  the  respirators  In  case  of  a  possible 
gas  attack,  supplied  by  that  staff  officer  with  a  twinkle 
in  his  eye,  we  needed  a  steel  rod  fastened  to  the  back 
of  our  necks  and  running  down  our  spinal  columns  in 
order  to  preserve  our  dignity. 

We  were  witnessing  what  Is  called  the  "  artillery 
preparation  for  an  infantry  attack,"  which  was  to  try 
to  recover  that  two  hundred  yards  of  trench  from  the 
British.     Only  the  Germans  did  not  limit  their  atten- 


MY  BEST  DAY  AT  THE  FRONT     333 

tion  to  the  lost  trench  alone.  It  was  hottest  there 
around  the  bend  of  our  line,  from  our  view-point;  for 
there  they  must  maul  the  trench  into  formless  debris 
and  cut  the  barbed  wire  in  front  of  it  before  the 
charge  was  made. 

"  They  touch  up  all  the  trenches  in  the  neighbour- 
hood to  keep  us  guessing,"  said  the  officer,  "  before 
they  make  their  final  concentration.  So  it's  pretty 
thick  around  this  part." 

"  Which  might  include  the  communication  trench?  " 

"  Certainly.  This  makes  a  good  line  shot.  No 
doubt  they  will  spare  us  a  few  when  they  think  it  is 
our  turn.     We  do  the  same  thing.     So  it  goes." 

From  the  variety  of  screams  of  big  shells  and  little 
shells  and  screams  harrowingly  close  and  reassuringly 
high,  which  were  indicated  as  ours,  one  was  war- 
ranted In  suggesting  that  the  British  were  doing  con- 
siderable  artillery  preparation  themselves. 

"  We  must  give  them  as  good  as  they  send  —  and 
more." 

More  seemed  correct. 

"  Those  close  ones  you  hear  are  doubtless  meant 
for  the  front  German  trench,  which  accounts  for  their 
low  trajectory;  the  others  for  their  support  trenches 
or  any  battery  positions  that  our  planes  have  located." 

We  could  not  see  where  the  British  shells  were 
striking.  We  could  judge  only  of  the  accuracy  of 
some  of  the  German  fire.  Considering  the  storm 
being  visited  on  the  support  trench  which  we  had 
just  left,  we  were  more  than  ever  glad  to  be  out  of 
it.  Artillery  is  the  war  burglar's  jimmy;  but  it  has 
to  batter  the  house  Into  ruins  and  smash  all  the  plate 
and  blow  up  the  safe  and  kill  most  of  the  family  be- 
fore the  burglar  can  enter.     Clouds  of  dust  rose  from 


334    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  explosions;  limbs  of  trees  were  lopped  off  by  tor- 
nadoes of  steel  hail. 

"  There  I     Look  at  that  tree  !  " 

In  front  of  a  portion  of  the  British  support  trench 
a  few  of  a  line  of  stately  shade  trees  were  still  stand- 
ing. A  German  shell,  about  an  eight-inch,  one 
judged,  struck  fairly  in  the  trunk  of  one  about  the 
same  height  from  the  ground  as  the  lumberman  sinks 
his  axe  in  the  bark.  The  shimmer  of  hot  gas  spread 
out  from  the  point  of  explosion.  Through  it  as 
through  an  aureole  one  saw  that  twelve  inches  of 
green  wood  had  been  cut  in  two  as  neatly  as  a  thistle 
stem  is  severed  by  a  sharp  blow  from  a  walking-stick. 
The  body  of  the  tree  was  carried  across  the  splint- 
ered stump  with  crushing  impact  from  the  power  of 
its  flight,  plus  the  power  of  the  burst  of  the  explo- 
sive charge  which  broke  the  shell-jacket  into  slash- 
ing fragments;  and  the  towering  column  of  limbs, 
branches,  and  foliage  laid  its  length  on  the  ground 
with  a  majestic  dignity.  Which  shows  what  one  shell 
can  do,  one  of  three  which  burst  in  the  neighbour- 
hood at  the  same  time.  In  time,  the  shells  would 
get  all  the  trees;  make  them  into  chips  and  splinters 
and  toothpicks. 

"  I'd  rather  that  it  would  hit  a  tree-trunk  than  my 
trunk,"  said  L . 

"  But  you  would  not  have  got  it  as  badly  as  the 
tree,"  said  the  officer  reassuringly.  "  The  substance 
would  have  been  too  soft  for  sufficient  impact  for  a 
burst.     It  would  have  gone  right  through!" 


XXIII 

MORE   BEST  DAY 

"Without  any  anaesthetic" — Tea  at  a  dugout  —  Over  the  wires 
"German  West  Africa  fallen" — Playing  with  death  —  A  trag- 
edy—  Travelling  the  "narrow  cut  of  earth" — Good  manners  of 
the  trenches  —  And  democracy — "The  men  who  will  rule  Eng- 
land " —  A  periscope  glance  at  the  German  trench  —  A  "  direct 
hit"  for  the  British — "Bombing  up  ahead!" — A  gas  shell  — 
Under  heavy  fire  —  "Like  beating  up  grouse  to  the  guns  and 
we  are  the  birds" — Crash! — And  safe  again! — A  "dead 
heat"  to  cover  —  A  touch  of  "nerves" — Back  to  the  dead  land 
behind  the  trenches. 

At  battalion  headquarters  in  the  front  trenches  the 
battalion  surgeon  had  just  amputated  an  arm  which 
had  been  mauled  by  a  shell. 

"  Without  any  anccsthetic,"  he  explained.  "  No 
chance  if  we  sent  him  back  to  the  hospital.  He  would 
die  on  the  way.  Stood  it  very  well.  Already  chirk- 
ing up." 

A  family  practitioner  at  home,  the  doctor,  when  the 
war  began,  had  left  his  practice  to  go  with  his  Ter- 
ritorial battalion.  He  retains  the  family  practition- 
er's cheery,  assuring  manner.  He  is  the  kind  of  man 
who  makes  you  feel  better  immediately  he  comes  into 
the  sick-room;  who  has  already  made  you  forget  your- 
self when  he  puts  his  finger  on  your  pulse.  There  are 
thousands  of  that  kind  at  home.  Probably  you  have 
sent  a  hurry  telephone  call  for  his  like  more  than 
once. 

"  The  same  thing  that  we  might  have  done  in  the 
Crimea,"   he   continued,    "  only   we   have  antiseptics 

335 


33^    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

now.  It's  wonderful  how  little  you  can  work  with 
and  how  excellent  the  results.  Strong,  healthy  men, 
these,  with  great  recuperative  power  and  discipline 
and  resolution  —  very  different  patients  from  those 
we  usually  operate  on." 

Tea  was  served  inside  the  battalion  commander's 
dugout.  Tea  is  as  essential  every  afternoon  to  the 
British  as  ice  to  the  average  American  in  summer^ 
They  don't  think  of  getting  on  without  it  if  they  can 
possibly  have  it,  and  it  is  part  of  the  rations.  As 
well  take  cigarettes  away  from  those  who  smoke  as 
tea  from  the  British  soldier. 

It  was  very  much  like  tea  outside  the  trenches,  sa 
far  as  any  signs  of  perturbation  about  shells  and  cas- 
ualties were  concerned.  In  that  the  battalion  com- 
mander had  to  answer  telegrams,  it  had  the  aspect 
of  a  busy  man's  sandwich  at  his  desk  for  luncheon. 
Good  news  to  cheer  the  function  had  just  come  over 
the  network  of  wires  which  connects  up  the  whole 
army,  from  trenches  to  headquarters  —  good  news  in 
the  midst  of  the  shells. 

German  West  Africa  had  fallen.  Botha,  who  was 
fighting  against  the  British  fifteen  years  ago,  had  taken 
it  fighting  for  the  British.  A  suggestive  thought 
that.  It  is  British  character  that  brings  enemies  like 
Botha  into  the  fold;  the  old,  good-natured,  sports- 
manlike, live-and-let-Hve  idea,  which  has  something  to 
do  with  keeping  the  United  States  intact.  A  board 
with  the  news  on  it  in  German  was  put  up  over  the 
British  trenches.  Naturally,  the  board  was  shot  full 
of  holes;  for  it  is  clear  that  the  Germans  are  not  yet 
ready  to  come  into  the  British  Empire. 

"  Hans  and  Jacob  we  have  named  them,"  said  the 
colonel,  referring  to  two  Germans  who  were  buried 


MORE  BEST  DAY  337 

back  of  his  dugout.  "  It's  dull  up  here  when  the 
Boches  are  not  shelling,  so  we  let  our  imaginations 
play.  We  hold  conversations  with  Hans  and  Jacob 
in  our  long  watches.  Hans  is  fat  and  cheerful  and 
trusting.  He  believes  everything  that  the  Kaiser  tells 
him  and  has  a  cheerful  disposition.  But  Jacob  is  a 
professor  and  a  fearful  '  strafer.'  It  seems  a  Httle 
gruesome,  doesn't  it,  but  not  after  you  have  been  in 
the  trenches  for  a  while." 

A  little  gruesome  —  true !  Not  in  the  trenches  — 
true,  too !  Where  all  is  satire,  no  incongruity  seems 
out  of  place.  Life  plays  in  and  out  with  death;  they 
intermingle;  they  look  each  other  in  the  face  and  say, 
"  I  know  you.  We  dwell  together.  Let  us  smile 
when  we  may,  at  what  we  may,  to  hide  the  character 
of  our  comradeship;  for  to-morrow — " 

Only  half  an  hour  before  one  of  the  officers  had 
been  shot  through  the  head  by  a  sniper.  He  was  a 
popular  officer.  The  others  had  messed  with  him 
and  marched  with  him  and  known  him  in  the  fulness 
of  affection  of  comradeship  in  arms  and  dangers 
shared.  A  heartbreak  for  some  home  in  England. 
No  one  dwelt  on  the  incident.  What  was  there  to 
say?  The  trembling  lip,  trembling  in  spite  of  itself, 
was  the  only  outward  sign  of  the  depth  of  feeling  that 
words  could  not  reflect,  at  tea  in  the  dugout.  The 
subject  was  changed  to  something  about  the  living. 
One  must  carry  on  cheerfully;  one  must  be  on  the 
alert;  one  must  play  his  part  serenely,  unflinchingly, 
for  the  sake  of  the  nerves  around  him  and  for  his 
own  sake.  Such  fortitude  becomes  automatic,  it 
would  seem.  Please,  I  must  not  hesitate  about  hav- 
ing a  slice  of  cake.  They  managed  cake  without  any 
difficulty  up  there  in  the  trenches.     And  who  if  not 


338  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

men  in  the  trenches  was  entitled  to  cake,  I  should  like 
to  know? 

"  It  was  here  that  he  was  hit,"  another  officer  said, 
as  we  moved  on  in  the  trench.  "  He  was  saying  that 
the  sandbags  were  a  little  weak  there  and  a  bullet 
might  go  through  and  catch  a  man,  who  thought  him- 
self safely  under  cover  as  he  walked  along.  He  had 
started  to  fix  the  sandbags  himself  when  he  got  it. 
The  bullet  came  right  through  the  top  of  one  of  the 
bags  in  front  of  him." 

A  bullet  makes  the  merciful  wound;  and  a  bullet 
through  the  head  is  a  simple  way  of  going.  The  bad 
wounds  come  mostly  from  shells;  but  there  is  some- 
thing about  seeing  any  one  hit  by  a  sniper  which  is 
more  horrible.  It  is  a  cold-blooded  kind  of  killing, 
more  suggestive  of  murder,  this  single  shot  from  a 
sharpshooter  waiting  as  patiently  as  a  cat  for  a 
mouse,  aimed  definitely  to  take  the  life  of  one  man. 

Again  we  move  on  in  that  narrow  cut  of  earth  with 
its  waiting  soldiers,  which  the  world  knows  so  well 
from  reading  tours  of  the  trenches.  No  one  not  on 
watch  might  show  his  head  on  an  afternoon  like  this. 
The  men  were  prisoners  between  those  walls  of  earth; 
not  even  spectators  of  what  the  guns  were  doing; 
simply  moles.  They  took  it  all  as  a  part  of  the  day's 
work,  with  that  singular,  redoubtable  combination  of 
British  phlegm  and  cheerfulness. 

Of  course,  some  of  them  were  eating  bread  and 
marmalade  and  making  tea.  Where  all  the  marma- 
lade goes  which  Mr.  Atkins  uses  for  his  personal 
munition  in  fighting  the  Germans  puzzles  the  Army 
Service  Corps,  whose  business  it  is  to  see  that  he  is 
never  without  it.  How  could  he  sit  so  calmly  under 
shell-fire  without  marmalade?     Never!     He  would 


MORE  BEST  DAY  339 

get  fidgetty  and  forget  his  lesson,  I  am  sure,  like  the 
boy  who  had  the  button  which  he  was  used  to  finger- 
ing removed  before  he  went  to  recite. 

Any  minute  a  shell  may  come.  Mr.  Atkins  does 
not  think  of  that.  Time  enough  to  think  after  it  has 
arrived.  Then  perhaps  the  burial  party  will  be  doing 
your  thinking  for  you;  or  If  not,  the  doctors  and  the 
nurses  who  look  after  you  will. 

I  noted  certain  acts  of  fellowship  of  comrades  who 
are  all  in  the  same  boat  and  have  learned  unselfish- 
ness. When  they  got  up  to  let  you  pass  and  you 
smiled  your  thanks,  you  received  a  much  pleasanter 
smile  in  return  than  you  will  from  many  a  well-fed 
gentleman,  who  has  to  stand  aside  to  let  you  enter 
a  restaurant.  The  manners  of  the  trenches  are  good, 
better  than  in  many  places  where  good  manners  are 
a  cult. 

There  is  no  better  place  to  send  a  spoiled,  undisci- 
plined, bumptious  youth  than  to  a  British  trench.  He 
would  learn  that  there  are  other  men  in  the  world 
besides  himself  and  that  a  shell  can  kill  a  rich  brute 
or  a  selfish  brute  as  readily  as  a  poor  man.  Democ- 
racy there  is  in  the  trenches;  the  democracy  where 
all  men  are  in  the  presence  of  death  and  "  hazing  " 
parties  need  not  be  organised  among  the  students. 

But  there  is  another  and  a  greater  element  in  the 
practical  psychology  of  the  trenches.  These  good- 
natured  men,  fighting  the  bitterest  kind  of  warfare, 
without  the  signs  of  brutality  which  we  associate  with 
the  prize  fighter  and  the  bully  in  their  faces,  know 
why  they  are  fighting.  They  consider  that  their  duty 
is  in  that  trench,  and  that  they  could  not  have  a  title 
to  manhood  if  they  were  not  there.  After  the  war 
the  men  who  have  been  in  the  trenches  will  rule  Eng- 


340  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

land.  Their  spirit  and  their  thinking  will  fashion 
the  new  trend  of  civilisation,  and  the  men  who  have 
not  fought  will  bear  the  worst  scars  from  the  war. 

Ridiculous  it  is  that  men  should  be  moles,  per- 
haps; but  at  the  same  time  there  is  something  sub- 
lime in  the  fellowship  of  their  courage  and  purpose, 
as  they  "  sit  and  take  it,"  or  guard  against  attacks, 
without  the  passion  of  battle  of  the  old  days  of  ex- 
cited charges  and  quick  results,  and  watch  the  toll  pass 
by  from  hour  to  hour.  Borne  by  comrades  pickaback 
we  saw  the  wounded  carried  along  that  passage  too 
narrow  for  a  litter.  A  splash  of  blood,  a  white 
bandage,  a  limp  form ! 

For  the  second  permissible  —  periscopes  are  tempt- 
ing targets  —  I  looked  through  one  over  the  top  of 
the  parapet.  Another  film!  A  big  British  lyddite 
shell  went  crashing  into  the  German  parapet.  The 
dust  from  sandbags  and  dugouts  merged  into  an  im- 
mense cloud  of  ugly,  black  smoke.  As  the  cloud 
rose,  one  saw  the  figure  of  a  German  dart  out  of 
sight;  then  nothing  was  visible  but  the  gap  which  the 
explosion  has  made.  No  wise  German  would  show 
himself  there.  British  snipers  were  watching  for  him. 
At  least  half  a  dozen,  perhaps  a  score,  of  men  had 
been  put  out  by  this  single  "  direct  hit "  of  an  h.  e. 
(high  explosive).  Yes,  the  British  gunners  were 
shooting  well,  too.  Other  periscopic  glimpses  proved 
it. 

Through  the  periscope  we  learned  also  that  the 
two  lines  of  sandbags  of  German  and  British  trenches 
were  drawing  nearer  together.  Another  wounded 
man  was  brought  by. 

"  They're  bombing  up  ahead.  He  has  just  been 
hit  by  a  bomb." 


MORE  BEST  DAY  341 

As  wc  drew  aside  to  make  room  for  him  to  pass, 
once  more  the  civilian  realised  his  helplessness  and 
unimportance.  One  soldier  was  worth  ten  Prime 
Ministers  in  that  place.  We  were  as  conspicuously 
mal  a  propos  as  an  outsider  at  a  bank  directors'  meet- 
ing or  in  a  football  scrimmage.  The  officer  politely 
reminded  us  of  the  necessity  of  elbow  room  in  the  nar- 
row quarters  for  the  bombers,  who  were  hidden  from 
view  by  the  zigzag  traverses,  and  I  was  not  sorry, 
though  perhaps  my  companions  were.  If  so,  they 
did  not  say  so,  not  being  talkative  men.  We  were 
not  going  to  see  that  two  hundred  yards  of  captured 
trench  that  was  beyond  the  bombing  action,  after  all. 
Oh,  the  twinkle  in  that  staff  officer's  eye ! 

"  A  Boche  gas  shell!  "  we  were  told,  as  we  passed 
an  informal  excavation  in  the  communication  trench 
on  our  way  back.  "  Asphyxiating  effect.  No  time 
to  put  on  respirators  when  one  explodes.  Laid  out 
half  a  dozen  men  like  fish,  gasping  for  air,  but  they 
will  recover," 

*'  The  Boches  want  us  to  hurry !  "  exclaimed  L . 

They  were  giving  the  communication  trench  a  turn 
at  "  strafing,"  now,  and  shells  were  urgently  dropping 
behind  us.  There  was  no  use  of  trying  to  respond  to 
one's  natural  inclination  to  run  away  from  the  pursu- 
ing shower  when  you  had  to  squeeze  past  soldiers  as 
you  went. 

"  But  look  at  what  we  are  going  into !  This  is  like 
beating  up  grouse  to  the  guns,  and  we  are  the  birds  I 
I  am  wondering  if  I  like  it." 

We  could  tell  what  had  happened  in  our  absence  in 
the  support  trench  by  the  litter  of  branches  and  leaves 
and  by  the  excavations  made  by  shells.  It  was  still 
happening,  too.     Another  nine-inch,  with  your  only 


342  MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

view  of  your  surroundings  the  wall  of  earth  which 
you  hugged.      Crash  —  and  safe  again! 

"  Pretty !  "  L said,  smiling.     He  was  referring 

to  the  cloud  of  black  smoke  from  the  burst.  Pretty 
is  a  favourite  word  of  his.  I  find  that  men  use  habit- 
ual exclamations  on  such  occasions.  R ,  also  smil- 
ing, had  said,  "A  black  business,  this!  "  a  favourite 
expression  with  him. 

"  Yet  —  pretty!  "  R and  I  exclaimed  together. 

L took  a  sliver  off  his  coat  and  offered  it  to  us 

as  a  souvenir.  He  did  not  know  that  he  had  said 
"  Pretty !  "  or  R that  he  had  said  "  A  black  busi- 
ness! "  several  times  that  afternoon;  nor  did  I  know 
that  I  had  exclaimed  "  For  the  love  of  Mike !  "  Psy- 
chologists take  notice;  and  golfers  are  reminded  that 
their  favourite  expletives  when  they  foozle  will  come 
perfectly  natural  to  them  when  the  Germans  are 
"  strafing."  Then  another  nine-inch,  when  we  were 
out  of  the  gallery  in  front  of  the  warrens.  My  com- 
panions happened  to  be  near  a  dugout.  They  did  not 
go  in  tandem,  but  abreast.  It  was  a  "  dead  heat." 
All  that  I  could  see  in  the  way  of  cover  was  a  wall 
of  sandbags,  which  looked  about  as  comforting  as 
tissue  paper  in  such  a  crisis. 

At  least,  one  faintly  realised  what  it  meant  to  be 
in  the  support  trenches,  where  the  men  were  still 
huddled  in  their  caves.  They  never  get  a  shot  at  the 
enemy  or  a  chance  to  throw  a  bomb,  unless  they  are 
sent  forward  to  assist  the  front  trenches  in  resisting 
an  attack.  It  is  for  this  purpose  that  they  are  kept 
within  easy  reach  of  the  front  trenches.  They  are 
like  the  prisoner  tied  to  a  chair-back,  facing  a  gun. 

"  Yes,  this  was  pretty  heavy  shell-fire,"  said  an 
officer,  who  ought  to  know.     "  Not  so  bad  as  on  the 


MORE  BEST  DAY  343 

trenches  which  the  Infantry  are  to  attack  —  that  is 
the  first  degree.     You  might  call  this  the  second." 

It  was  hea\-y  enough  to  keep  any  writer  from  being 
bored.  The  second  degree  will  do.  We  will  leave 
the  first  till  another  time. 

Later,  when  we  were  walking  along  a  paved  road, 
I  heard  what  seemed  the  siren  call  of  another  nine- 
inch.  Once,  in  another  war,  I  had  been  on  a  paved 
road  when  —  well,  I  did  not  care  to  be  on  this  one 
if  a  nine-inch  hit  it  and  turned  fragments  of  paving- 
stones  into  projectiles.  An  effort  to  "  run  out  the 
bunt" — Caesar's  ghost!  It  was  one  of  our  own 
shells !  Nerves !  Shame !  Two  stretcher-bearers 
with  a  wounded  man  looked  up  in  surprise,  wonder- 
ing what  kind  of  a  hide-and-seek  game  we  were  play- 
ing. They  made  a  picture  of  imperturbability  of  the 
kind  that  is  a  cure  for  nerves  under  fire.  If  the  other 
fellow  is  not  scared  it  does  not  do  for  you  to  be 
scared. 

"  Did  you  get  any  shells  in  your  neighbourhood?  " 
we  asked  the  chauffeur  —  also  British  and  imperturb- 
able —  whom  we  found  waiting  at  a  clearing  station 
for  wounded. 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  saw  several,  but  none  hit  the  car." 

As  we  came  to  the  first  cross-roads  in  that  dead 
land  back  of  the  trenches  which  was  still  being  shelled 
by  shrapnel,  though  not  another  car  was  in  sight  and 
ours  had  no  business  there  (as  we  were  told  after- 
ward), that  chauffeur,  as  he  slowed  up  before  turn- 
ing, held  out  his  hand  from  habit  as  he  would  have 
done  in  Piccadilly. 

Two  or  three  days  later  things  were  normal  along 
the  front  again,  with  Mr.  Atkins  still  stuffing  himself 
with  marmalade  in  that  two  hundred  yards  of  trench. 


XXIV 

WINNING   AND    LOSING 

The  Western  front:  a  pulsating,  changing  line  —  OflFensive  with  the 
British  —  The  buoyant  youth  of  England  —  Not  a  "good  show" 

—  English  sportsmanship  —  A  successful  battalion  —  Psychology 
of  the  charge — "Here  we  are  again!" — Stories  of  the  capture 

—  The  "  Keetcheenaires  " — An  army  in  the  making. 

Seeming  an  immovable  black  line  set  as  a  frontier  In 
peace,  that  Western  front  on  your  map  which  you 
bought  early  In  the  war  In  anticipation  of  rearranging 
the  flags  In  keeping  with  each  day's  news  was,  in  real- 
ity, a  pulsating,  changing  line. 

At  times  one  thought  of  It  as  an  enormous  rope 
under  the  constant  pressure  of  soldiers  on  either  side, 
who  now  and  then,  with  an  "  all  together  "  of  a  tug 
of  war  at  a  given  point,  straightened  or  made  a  bend, 
with  the  result  Imperceptible  except  as  you  measured 
it  by  a  tree  or  a  house.  Battles  as  severe  as  the  most 
important  in  South  Africa,  battles  severe  enough  to 
have  decided  famous  campaigns  In  Europe  In  older 
days,  when  one  king  rode  forth  against  another,  be- 
came the  landmark  Incidents  of  the  give  and  take,  the 
wrangling  and  the  wrestling  of  siege  operations. 

The  sensation  of  victory  or  defeat  for  those  en- 
gaged became  none  the  less  vivid  because  victory 
meant  the  gain  of  so  little  ground  and  defeat  the  loss 
of  so  little;  perhaps  the  more  vivid  In  want  of  the 
movement  of  pursuing  or  of  being  pursued  In  the  shock 
of  arms  in  past  times  when  an  army  front  hardly  cov- 
ered that  of  one  brigade  in  the  trenches.     For  win- 

344 


WINNING  AND  LOSING  345 

ners  and  losers  returning  to  their  billets  In  French  vil- 
lages, as  other  battalions  took,  their  places,  had  time 
to  think  over  the  action. 

The  offensive  was  mostly  with  the  British  through 
the  summer  of  191 5;  any  thrust  by  the  Germans  was 
usually  to  retake  a  section  of  trenches  which  they  had 
lost.  But  our  attacks  did  not  all  succeed,  of  course. 
Battalions  knew  success  and  failure;  and  their  nar- 
ratives were  mine  to  share,  just  as  one  would  share 
the  good  luck  or  the  bad  luck  of  his  neighbours. 

You  may  have  a  story  of  heartbreak  or  triumph  an 
hour  after  you  have  been  chatting  with  playing  chil- 
dren in  a  village  street,  as  the  car  speeds  toward  the 
zone  where  the  reserves  are  billeted  and  the  occa- 
sional shell  is  warning  that  peace  is  behind  you. 
First,  one  alights  near  the  headquarters  of  two  bat- 
talions which  have  been  in  an  attack  that  failed.  The 
colonel  of  the  one  to  the  left  of  the  road  was  killed. 
We  go  across  the  fields  to  the  right.  Among  the  sur- 
viving officers  resting  in  their  shelter  tents,  where 
there  is  plenty  of  room  now.  Is  the  adjutant,  tall,  boy- 
ish, looking  tired,  but  still  with  no  outward  display 
of  what  he  has  gone  through  and  what  it  has  meant 
to  him.  I  have  seen  him  by  the  hundreds,  this  buoy- 
ant type  of  English  youth.  The  colonel  comes  out 
of  the  farmhouse  and  he  sends  for  some  other  officers. 

In  army  language,  theirs  had  not  been  a  "good 
show."  We  had  heard  the  account  of  it  with  that 
matter-of-fact  prefix  from  G.  H.  Q.,  where  they  took 
results  with  the  necessarily  cold  eye  of  logic.  The 
two  battalions  were  set  to  take  a  trench ;  that  was  all. 
In  the  midst  of  merciless  shell-fire  they  had  waited  for 
their  own  guns  to  draw  all  the  teeth  out  of  the  trench. 
When  the  given  moment  came  they  swept  forward. 


346    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

But  our  artillery  had  not  "  connected  up  "  properly. 

The  German  machine  guns  were  not  out  of  com- 
mission, and  for  them  it  was  like  working  a  loom  play- 
ing the  bullets  back  and  forth  across  the  zone  of  a 
hundred  yards  which  the  British  had  to  traverse.  The 
British  had  been  told  to  charge  and  they  charged. 
Theirs  not  to  reason  why;  that  was  the  glory  of  the 
thing.  Nothing  more  gallant  in  warfare  than  their 
persistence,  till  they  found  that  it  was  like  trying  to 
swim  in  a  cataract  of  lead.  One  officer  got  within  fifty 
yards  of  the  German  parapet  before  he  fell.  At  last 
they  realised  that  it  could  not  be  done  —  later  than 
they  should,  but  they  were  a  proud  regiment  and 
though  they  had  been  too  brave,  there  was  something 
splendid  about  it. 

With  a  soldier's  winning  frankness  and  simplicity 
they  told  what  had  happened.  Even  before  they 
charged  they  knew  the  machine  guns  were  in  place; 
they  knew  what  they  had  to  face.  One  spoke  of  see- 
ing, as  they  lay  waiting,  a  German  officer  standing 
up  in  the  midst  of  the  British  shell-fire. 

"  A  stout-hearted  fighter !  We  had  to  admire 
him !  "  said  the  adjutant. 

It  was  a  chivalrous  thought  with  a  deep  appeal, 
considering  what  he  had  been  through.  Oh,  these 
English!  They  will  not  hate;  they  cannot  be  sepa- 
rated from  their  sense  of  sportsmanship. 

It  was  not  the  first  time  the  guns  had  not  "  con- 
nected up  "  for  either  side,  and  German  charges  on 
many  occasions  had  met  a  like  fate.  Calm  enough, 
these  officers,  true  to  their  birthright  of  phlegm.  They 
did  not  make  excuses.  Success  is  the  criterion 
of  battle.  They  had  failed.  Their  unblinking  recog- 
nition   of   the    fact  was    a    sort   of   self-punishment 


WINNING  AND  LOSING  347 

which  cut  deep  into  your  own  sensitiveness.  One 
young  lieutenant  could  not  keep  his  lip  from  trembling 
over  that  naked,  grim  thought.  The  pride  of  regi- 
ment had  been  struck  a  whip-blow  which  meant  more 
to  the  soldier  than  any  injury  to  his  personal  pride. 

But  next  time !  They  wanted  another  try  for  that 
trench,  these  survivors.  No  matter  about  anything 
else  —  the  battalion  must  have  another  chance.  You 
appreciated  this  from  a  few  words  and  more  from  the 
stubborn  resolution  in  the  bearing  of  all.  There  was 
no  "  let-us-at-'em-again  "  frightfulness.  In  order  to 
end  this  war  you  must  "  lick  "  one  side  or  the  other, 
and  these  men  were  not  "  licked."  One  was  sorry 
that  he  had  gone  to  see  them.  It  was  like  lacerating 
a  wound.  One  could  only  assure  them,  in  his  faith 
in  their  gallantry,  that  they  would  win  next  time. 
And  oh,  how  you  wanted  them  to  win!  They  de- 
served to  win  because  they  were  such  manly  losers. 

At  home  in  their  rough  wooden  houses  in  camp 
we  found  a  battalion  which  had  won  —  the  same  un- 
demonstrative type  as  the  one  that  had  lost;  the  same 
simplicity  and  kindly  hospitality  which  gives  life  at 
the  front  a  charm  in  the  midst  of  its  tragedy,  from 
these  men  of  one  of  the  dependable  line  regiments. 
This  colonel  knew  the  other  colonel,  and  he  said  about 
the  other  what  his  fellow-officers  had  said:  it  was  not 
his  fault;  he  was  a  good  man.  If  the  guns  were  not 
"  on,"  what  happened  to  him  was  bound  to  happen  to 
anybody.  They  had  been  "  on  "  for  the  winning  bat- 
talion; perfectly  "on."  They  had  buried  the  ma- 
chine guns  and  the  Germans  with  them. 

When  a  man  goes  into  the  kind  of  charge  that 
either  battalion  made  he  gives  himself  up  for  lost. 
The  psychology  is  simple.     You  are  going  to  keep  on 


348    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

until  —  I  Well,  as  Mr.  Atkins  has  remarked  in  his 
own  terse  way,  a  battle  was  a  lot  of  noise  all  around 
you  and  suddenly  a  big  bang  in  your  ear;  and  then 
somebody  said,  "  Please  open  your  mouth  and  take 
this  1  "  and  you  found  yourself  in  a  white,  silent  place 
full  of  cots. 

The  winning  battalion  was  amazed  how  easily  the 
thing  was  done.  They  had  "  walked  in."  They 
were  a  little  surprised  to  be  alive  —  thanks  to  the 
guns.  *'  Here  we  are!  Here  we  are  again!  "  as  the 
song  at  the  front  goes.  It  is  all  a  lottery.  Make 
up  your  mind  to  draw  the  death  number;  and  if  you 
don't,  that  is  velvet.  Army  courage  these  days  is 
highly  sensitised  steel  in  response  to  will. 

They  had  won;  there  was  a  credit  mark  in  the 
regimental  record.  All  had  won;  nobody  in  particu- 
lar, but  the  battalion,  the  lot  of  them.  They  did  not 
boast  about  it.  The  thing  just  happened.  They 
were  alive  and  enjoying  the  sheer  fact  of  life,  writ- 
ing letters  home,  re-reading  letters  from  home,  look- 
ing at  the  pictures  in  the  illustrated  papers,  as  they 
leaned  back  and  smoked  their  briar-wood  pipes  and 
discussed  politics  with  that  freedom  and  directness  of 
opinion  which  is  an  Englishman's  pastime  and  his 
birthright. 

The  captain  who  was  describing  the  fight  had  re- 
tired from  the  army,  gone  into  business,  and  returned 
as  a  reserve  officer.  The  guns  were  to  stop  firing  at 
a  given  moment.  As  the  minute-hand  lay  over  the 
figure  on  his  wrist  watch  he  dashed  for  the  broken 
parapet,  still  in  the  haze  of  dust  from  the  shell-bursts, 
to  find  not  a  German  in  sight.  All  were  under  cover. 
He  enacted  the  ridiculous  scene  with  humorous  ap- 
preciation of  how  he  came  face  to  face  with  a  German 


WINNING  AND  LOSING  349 

as  he  turned  a  traverse.  He  was  ready  with  his  re- 
volver and  the  other  was  not,  and  the  other  was  his 
prisoner. 

There  was  nothing  grewsome  about  hstening  to  a 
diffident  soldier  explaining  how  he  "  bombed  them 
out,"  and  you  shared  his  amusement  over  the  sur- 
prise of  a  German  who  stuck  his  head  out  of  a  dugout 
within  a  foot  of  the  face  of  a  British  soldier,  who  was 
peeping  inside  to  see  if  any  more  Boches  were  at 
home.  You  rejoiced  with  this  battalion.  Victory  is 
sweet. 

When  on  the  way  back  to  quarters  you  passed  some 
of  the  New  Army  men,  "  the  Keetcheenaires,"  as  the 
French  call  them,  you  were  reminded  of  how,  al- 
though the  war  was  old,  the  British  army  was  young. 
There  was  a  "Watch  our  city  grow!"  atmosphere 
about  it.  Little  by  Httle,  some  great  force  seems 
steadily  pushing  up  from  the  rear.  It  made  that  busi- 
ness institution  at  G.  H.  Q.  feel  like  bankers  with  an 
enormous,  increasing  surplus.  In  this  the  British  is 
like  no  other  army.  One  has  watched  it  in  the 
making. 


XXV 

THE  MAPLE  LEAF   FOLK 

Canadians  at  the  front  —  Home  folks  to  the  American  —  One  touch 
of  New  York  slang  —  Hustlers  —  The  discipline  of  self-reliance 

—  Charging  through  gas  —  Our  bond  with  the  Canadians  — 
Their  optimism  and  sentiment  —  The  Princess  Pats  —  Holding 
down  the  lid  of  hell  —  The  second  battle  of  Ypres  —  The  Story 
of  May  Eighth  —  Holding  a  salient  —  The  Germans  prepare  to 
attack  —  The  marksmen  of  the  P.  P's  —  Down  go  the  Germans 

—  The  attack  broken  —  Official  record  of  the  struggle  —  Ma- 
chine guns  buried  —  Reinforcements  and  ammunition  —  The 
third  and  severest  charge  —  Seventy-five  per  cent,  casualties  — 
The  P.  P's,  "  regulars  " —  Modern  knights. 

These  were  home  folks  to  the  American.  You 
might  know  all  by  their  maple  leaf  symbol;  but  even 
before  you  saw  that,  with  its  bronze  none  too  promi- 
nent against  the  khaki,  you  knew  those  who  were  not 
recent  emigrants  from  England  to  Canada  by  their 
accent  and  by  certain  slang  phrases  which  pay  no  cus- 
toms duty  at  the  border. 

When,  on  a  dark  February  night  cruising  in  a 
slough  of  a  road,  I  heard  out  of  a  wall  of  blackness 
back  of  the  trenches,  "Gee!  Get  onto  the  bus!" 
which  referred  to  our  car,  and  also,  "  Cut  out  the 
noise !  "  I  was  certain  that  I  might  dispense  with  an 
interpreter.  After  I  had  remarked  that  I  came  from 
New  York,  which  is  only  across  the  street  from  Mon- 
treal as  distances  go  in  our  countries,  the  American 
batting  about  the  front  at  midnight  was  welcomed 
with  a  "  glad  hand  "  across  that  imaginary  line  which 
has  and  ever  shall  have  no  fortresses. 

350 


THE  MAPLE  LEAF  FOLK  351 

What  a  strange  place  to  find  Canadians  —  at  the 
front  in  Europe  1  I  could  never  quite  accommodate 
myself  to  the  wonder  of  a  man  from  Winnipeg,  and 
perhaps  a  "  neutral  "  from  Wyoming  in  his  company, 
fighting  Germans  in  Flanders.  A  man  used  to  a 
downy  couch  and  an  easy-chair  by  the  fire  and  steam- 
heated  rooms,  who  had  ten  thousand  a  year  in 
Toronto,  when  you  found  him  in  a  chill,  damp  cellar 
of  a  peasant's  cottage  in  range  of  the  enemy's  shells 
was  getting  something  more  novel,  if  not  more  pic- 
turesque, than  dog-mushing  and  prospecting  on  the 
Yukon;  for  that  contrast  we  are  quite  used  to. 

All  I  asked  of  the  Canadians  was  to  allow  a  little 
of  the  glory  they  had  won  —  they  had  won  such  a 
lot  —  to  rub  off  on  their  neighbours.  If  there  must 
be  war,  and  no  Canadian  believed  in  it  as  an  institu- 
tion, why,  to  my  mind,  the  Canadians  did  a  fine  thing 
for  civilisation's  sake.  It  hurt  sometimes  to  think 
that  we  also  could  not  be  in  the  fight  for  the  good 
cause,  too,  particularly  after  the  Lusitania  was  sunk, 
when  my  own  feelings  had  lost  all  semblance  to  neu- 
trality. 

The  Canadians  enlivened  life  at  the  front;  for  they 
have  a  little  more  zip  to  them  than  the  thorough- 
going British.  Their  climate  spells  "  hustle,"  and  we 
are  all  the  product  of  climate  to  a  large  degree, 
whether  in  England,  on  the  Mississippi  flatlands,  or 
in  Manitoba.  Eager  and  highstrung  the  Canadian 
born,  quick  to  see  and  act.  Very  restless  they  were 
when  held  up  on  Salisbury  Plain,  after  they  had  come 
three-four-five-six  thousand  miles  to  fight  and  there 
was  nothing  but  mud  in  an  English  winter  to  fight. 

One  from  the  American  continent  knew  what  ailed 
them;  they  wanted  action.     They  may  have  seemed 


352    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

undisciplined  to  a  drill  sergeant;  but  the  kind  of  dis- 
cipline they  needed  was  a  sight  of  the  real  thing. 
They  wanted  to  know,  What  for?  And  Lord  Kitch- 
ener was  kinder  to  them,  though  many  were  begin- 
ners, than  to  his  own  new  army;  he  could  be,  as  they 
had  their  guns  and  equipment  ready.  So  he  sent 
them  over  to  France  before  it  was  too  late  in  the 
spring  to  get  frozen  feet  from  standing  in  icy  water 
looking  over  a  parapet  at  a  German  parapet.  They 
liked  Flanders  mud  better  than  Salisbury  Plain  mud, 
because  it  meant  that  there  was  "  something  doing." 

It  was  in  their  first  trenches  that  I  first  saw  them, 
and  they  were  "  on  the  job,  all  right,"  in  face  of  scat- 
tered shell-fire  and  the  sweep  of  the  searchlights  and 
the  flares.  They  had  become  the  most  ardent  of 
pupils,  for  here  was  that  real  thing  which  steadied 
them  and  proved  their  metal.  They  refashioned 
their  trenches  and  drained  them  with  the  fastidious- 
ness of  good  housekeepers,  who  had  a  frontiersman's 
experience  for  an  inheritance.  In  a  week  they  ap- 
peared to  be  old  hands  at  the  business. 

"  Their  discipline  is  different  from  ours,"  said  a 
British  general,  "  but  it  works  out.  They  are  splen- 
did.    I  ask  for  no  better  troops." 

They  may  have  lacked  the  etiquette  of  discipline 
of  British  regulars,  but  they  had  the  natural  disci- 
pline of  self-reliance  and  of  "  go  to  it "  when  a  crisis 
came.  This  trench  was  only  an  Introduction,  a  prep- 
aration for  a  thing  which  was  about  as  real  as  ever 
feU  to  the  lot  of  any  soldiers.  It  Is  not  for  me  to 
tell  here  the  story  of  their  part  In  the  second  battle 
of  Ypres  when  the  gas  fumes  rolled  in  upon  them.  I 
should  like  to  tell  it  and  also  the  story  of  the  deeds 
of  many  British  regiments,  from  the  time  of  Mons 


THE  MAPLE  LEAF  FOLK  353 

to  Festubert.  All  Canada  knows  It  in  detail  from 
their  own  correspondents  and  their  record  officer. 
England  will  one  day  know  about  her  regiments;  her 
stubborn  regiments  of  the  line,  her  county  regiments, 
who  have  won  the  admiration  of  all  the  crack  regi- 
ments, whether  English  or  Scots. 

"  When  that  gas  came  along,"  said  one  Canadian, 
who  expressed  the  Canadian  spirit,  "  we  knew  the 
Boches  were  springing  a  new  one  on  us.  You  know 
how  it  is  if  a  man  is  hit  in  the  face  by  a  cloud  of 
smoke  when  he  is  going  into  a  burning  building  to 
get  somebody  out.  He  draws  back  —  and  then  he 
goes  in.  We  went  in.  We  charged  —  well,  it  was 
the  way  we  felt  about  it.  We  wanted  to  get  at  them 
and  we  were  boiling  mad  over  such  a  dastardly  kind  of 
attack." 

Higher  authorities  than  any  civilian  have  testified 
to  how  that  charge  helped,  if  it  did  not  save  the  situa- 
tion. And  then  at  Givenchy  —  straight  work  into  the 
enemy's  trenches  under  the  guns.  Canada  is  a  part 
of  the  British  Empire  and  a  precious  part;  but  the 
Canadians,  all  imperial  politics  aside,  fought  their 
way  into  the  affections  of  the  British  army,  if  they 
did  not  already  possess  it.  They  made  the  Rocky 
Mountains  seem  more  majestic  and  the  Thousand  Is- 
lands more  lovely. 

If  there  are  some  people  in  the  United  States  busy 
with  their  own  affairs  who  look  on  the  Canadians  as 
living  up  north  somewhere  toward  the  Arctic  Circle 
and  not  very  numerous,  that  old  criterion  of  merit 
which  discovers  in  the  glare  of  battle's  publicity'  merit 
which  already  existed  has  given  to  the  name  Canadian 
a  glory  which  can  be  appreciated  only  with  the  per- 
spective of  time.     The  Civil  War  left  us  a  martial 


354    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tradition;  they  have  won  theirs.  Some  day  a  few  of 
their  neutral  neighbours,  who  fought  by  their  side  will 
be  joining  in  their  army  reunions  and  remarking, 
"  Wasn't  that  mud  in  Flanders  — "  etc. 

My  thanks  to  the  Canadians  for  being  at  the  front. 
They  brought  me  back  to  the  plains  and  the  North- 
west, and  they  showed  the  Germans  on  some  occa- 
sions what  a  blizzard  is  like  when  expressed  in  bullets 
instead  of  in  snowflakes,  by  men  who  know  how  to 
shoot.  I  had  continental  pride  in  them.  They  had 
the  dry,  pungent  philosophy  and  the  indomitable  opti- 
mism which  the  air  of  the  plains  and  the  St.  Lawrence 
Valley  seems  to  develop.  They  were  not  afraid  to 
be  a  little  emotional  and  sentimental.  There  is  room 
for  that  sort  of  thing  between  Vancouver  and  Hali- 
fax. They  had  been  in  some  "  tough  scraps  "  which 
they  saw  clear-eyed,  as  they  would  see  a  boxing-match 
or  a  spill  from  a  canoe  into  a  Canadian  rapids. 

As  for  the  Princess  Patricia's  Canadian  Light  In- 
fantry, all  old  soldiers  of  the  South  African  campaign 
almost  without  exception,  knowing  and  hardened, 
their  veteran  experience  gave  them  an  earlier  oppor- 
tunity in  the  trenches  than  the  first  Canadian  division. 
Brigaded  with  British  regulars,  the  Princess  Pats 
were  a  sort  of  corps  d'elite.  Colonel  Francis  Far- 
quhar,  known  as  "  Fanny,"  was  their  colonel,  and  he 
knew  his  men.  After  he  was  killed  his  spirit  re- 
mained with  them.  Asked  if  they  could  stick,  they 
said,  "  Yes,  sir!  "  cheerily,  as  he  would  have  wanted 
them  to  say  it. 

I  am  going  to  tell  you  about  the  work  of  the  Prin- 
cess Pats  on  May  8th,  not  to  single  them  out  from 
any  other  regiment,  but  because  it  is  typical  of  the 
kind  of  fighting  which  many  another  regiment  has 


THE  MAPLE  LEAF  FOLK  355 

known  and  I  have  It  in  Illustrative  detail.  Losses, 
day  by  day  losses,  characteristic  of  trench  warfare, 
they  had  previously  suffered  in  holding  a  difficult 
salient  at  St.  Eloi  —  losses  that  added  up  into  the 
hundreds.  Heretofore  as  one  of  them  said,  they  had 
been  holding  down  the  lid  of  hell,  but  on  May  8th 
they  were  to  hold  on  to  the  edge  of  the  opening  by 
the  skin  of  their  teeth  and  look  down  into  the  bowels 
of  hell  after  the  Germans  had  blown  off  the  lid  with 
high  explosives. 

It  was  in  a  big  chateau  that  I  first  heard  the  story 
and  felt  the  thrill  of  it  told  by  the  tongues  of  its  par- 
ticipants. There  were  twenty  bedrooms  in  that  cha- 
teau. If  I  wished  to  stay  all  night  I  might  occupy 
three  or  four  —  and  as  for  that  bathroom,  paradise 
to  men  who  have  been  buried  in  filthy  mud  by  high 
explosives,  the  Frenchman  who  planned  it  had  the 
most  spacious  ideas  In  immersions.  A  tub  or  a 
shower  or  a  hose  as  you  pleased.  Some  bathroom, 
that! 

For  nothing  In  the  British  army  was  too  good  for 
the  Princess  Pats  before  May  8th;  and  since  May  8th 
nothing  was  quite  good  enough.  Five  of  us  sat  down 
to  dinner  in  a  banquet  hall  looking  out  on  a  private 
park,  big  enough  to  hold  fifty.     The  talk  ran  fast. 

"  Too  bad  Gault  is  not  here.  He's  in  England 
recovering  from  his  wound.  Gault  is  six  feet  tall  and 
five  feet  of  him  legs.  All  day  In  that  trench  with  a 
shell  wound  in  his  thigh  and  arm.  God!  How  he 
was  suffering!  But  not  a  moan  —  his  face  twitch- 
ing and  trying  to  make  the  tv/itch  into  a  smile  —  and 
telling  us  to  stick." 

"  Buller  away,  too.  He  was  the  second  In  com- 
mand.    Gault    succeeded    him.     Buller   was    hit    on 


356    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

May  5th  —  and  missed  the  big  show  —  piece  of  shell 
in  the  eye." 

"  And  Charlie  Stewart,  who  was  shot  through  the 
stomach.  How  we  miss  him.  If  ever  there  were  a 
'  live-wire  '  it's  Charhe.  Up  or  down,  he's  smiling 
and  ready  for  the  next  adventure.  Once  he  made 
thirty  thousand  dollars  in  the  Yukon  —  and  spent  it 
on  the  way  to  Vancouver.  The  first  job  he  could  get 
was  washing  dishes  —  but  he  wasn't  washing  them 
long.  Again  he  started  out  in  the  Northwest  on  an 
expedition  with  four  hundred  traps  to  cut  into  the 
fur  business  of  the  Hudson's  Ray  Company.  His 
Indians  got  sick;  he  wouldn't  desert  them  —  and  be- 
fore he  was  through  he  had  a  time  which  beat  any- 
thing yet  opened  up  for  us  by  the  Germans  in  Flan- 
ders —  but  you  have  heard  such  stories  from  the 
Northwest  before.  Being  shot  through  the  stomach 
the  way  he  was  all  the  doctors  agreed  that  Charlie 
would  die.  It  was  like  Charlie  to  disagree  with 
them.  He  always  has  his  own  point  of  view.  So 
he  is  getting  well.  Charlie  came  out  to  the  war  with 
the  packing-case  which  had  been  used  by  his  grand- 
father, who  was  an  officer  in  the  Crimean  War.  He 
said  that  it  would  bring  him  luck." 

The  4th  of  May  was  bad  enough  —  a  ghastly  fore- 
runner for  the  8th.  On  the  4th  the  P.  P's,  after 
having  been  under  shell-fire  throughout  the  second 
battle  of  Ypres  —  the  "gas  battle" — were  ordered 
forward  to  a  new  line  to  the  southeast  of  Ypres.  To 
the  north  of  Ypres  the  British  line  had  been  driven 
back  by  the  concentration  of  shell-fire  and  the  roll- 
ing, deadly  march  of  the  clouds  of  asphyxiating  gas. 

The  Germans  were  still  determined  to  take  the 
town  which  they  had  showered  with  four  million  dol- 


THE  MAPLE  LEAF  FOLK  357 

lars'  worth  of  shells.  It  would  be  big  news  —  the 
fall  of  Ypres  as  a  prelude  to  the  fall  of  Przemysl 
and  of  Lemberg.  A  wicked  salient  was  produced  in 
the  British  line  to  the  southeast  by  the  cave-in  to  the 
north.  It  seems  to  be  the  lot  of  the  P.  P's  to  get 
into  salients.  On  the  4th  they  lost  28  men  killed 
and  98  wounded  from  a  gruelling  all-day  shell-fire 
and  stone-walling.  That  night  they  got  relief  and 
were  out  for  two  days,  when  they  were  back  in  the 
front  trenches  again.  The  5th  and  the  6th  were 
fairly  quiet;  that  is,  what  the  P.  P's  or  Mr.  Thomas 
Atkins  would  call  quiet.  Average  mortals  wouldn't. 
They  would  try  to  appear  unconcerned  and  say  they 
had  been  under  pretty  heavy  fire  —  which  means 
shells  all  over  the  place  and  machine  guns  combing 
the  parapet.  Very  dull,  indeed.  Only  three  men 
killed  and  seventeen  wounded. 

On  the  night  of  May  7th  the  P.  P's  had  a  muster 
of  635  men.  This  was  a  good  deal  less  than  half 
of  the  original  total  in  the  battalion,  including  re- 
cruits who  had  come  out  to  fill  the  gaps  caused  by 
death,  wounds  and  sickness.  Bear  in  mind  that  be- 
fore this  war  a  force  was  supposed  to  prepare  for 
retreat  with  a  loss  of  ten  per  cent,  and  get  under  way 
to  the  rear  with  the  loss  of  fifteen  per  cent.,  and  that 
with  the  loss  of  thirty  per  cent,  it  was  supposed  to 
have  borne  all  that  can  be  expected  of  the  best  trained 
soldiers. 

The  Germans  were  quiet  that  night  —  suggestively 
quiet.  At  4.30  the  prelude  began;  by  5.30  the  Ger- 
man gunners  had  fairly  warmed  to  their  work.  They 
were  using  every  kind  of  shell  they  had  in  the  locker. 
Every  signal  wire  the  P.  P's  possessed  had  been  cut. 
The  brigade  commander  could  not  know  what  was 


358    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

happening  to  them  and  they  could  not  know  his 
wishes  —  except  that  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that 
the  orders  of  any  British  brigade  commander  are  al- 
ways to  "  stick  it." 

The  shell-fire  was  as  thick  at  the  P.  P.'s  backs  as 
in  front  of  them.  They  were  fenced  in  by  shell-fire. 
And  they  were  infantry  taking  what  the  guns  gave 
in  order  to  put  them  out  of  business  so  that  the  way 
would  be  clear  for  the  German  infantry  to  charge. 
In  theory  they  ought  to  have  been  buried  and  man- 
gled beyond  the  power  of  resistance  by  what  is  called 
"  the  artillery  preparation  for  the  infantry  in  at- 
tack." 

Every  man  of  the  P.  P's  knew  what  was  coming. 
There  was  relief  in  their  hearts  when  they  saw  the 
Germans  break  from  their  trenches  and  start  down 
the  slope  of  the  hill  in  front.  Now  they  could  take 
it  out  of  the  German  infantry  in  payment  for  what 
the  German  guns  were  doing  to  them.  This  was  their 
only  thought.  Being  good  shots,  with  the  instinct  of 
the  man  v/ho  is  used  to  shooting  at  game,  the  P.  P's 
"  shoot  to  kill  "  and  at  individual  targets.  The  light 
green  of  the  German  uniform  is  more  visible  on  the 
deep  green  background  of  spring  grass  and  foliage 
than  against  the  tints  of  autumn. 

At  two  or  three  or  four  hundred  yards  no  one  of 
the  marksmen  of  the  P.  P's,  and  there  were  several 
said  to  be  able  to  "  shoot  the  eye  off  an  ant,"  could 
miss  the  target.  As  for  Corporal  Christy,  the  old 
bear  hunter  of  the  Northwest,  he  leaned  out  over  the 
parapet  when  a  charge  began  because  he  could  shoot 
better  in  that  position.  They  kept  on  knocking  down 
Germans;  they  didn't  know  that  men  around  them 
were  being  hit;  they  hardly  knew  that  they  were  being 


THE  MAPLE  LEAF  FOLK  359 

shelled  except  when  a  burst  shook  their  aim  or  filled 
their  eyes  with  dust.  In  that  case  they  wiped  the 
dust  out  of  their  eyes  and  went  on.  The  first  that 
many  of  them  realised  that  the  German  attack  was 
broken  was  when  they  saw  green  blots  in  front  of  the 
standing  figures  —  which  were  now  going  in  the  other 
direction.  Then  the  thing  was  to  keep  as  many  of 
these  as  possible  from  getting  back  over  the  hill. 
After  that  they  could  dress  the  wounded  and  make 
the  dying  a  little  more  comfortable.  For  there  was 
no  getting  the  wounded  to  the  rear.  They  had  to 
remain  there  in  the  trench  perhaps  to  be  wounded 
again,  spectators  of  their  comrades'  valour  without 
the  preoccupation  of  action. 

In  the  official  war  journal  where  a  battalion  keeps 
its  records  —  that  precious  historical  document  which 
will  be  safeguarded  in  fireproof  vaults  one  of  these 
days  —  you  may  read  in  cold  official  language  what 
happened  in  one  section  of  the  British  line  on  the  8th 
of  May.     Thus: 

"7  A.  M.  Fire  trench  on  right  blown  in  at  sev- 
eral points.  ...  9  A.  M.  Lieutenants  Martin  and 
Triggs  were  hit  and  came  out  of  left  communicating 
trench  with  number  of  wounded.  .  .  .  Captain  Still 
and  Lieut,  de  Bay  hit  also.  .  .  .  9.30  A.  M.  All 
machine  guns  were  buried  (by  high  explosive  shells) 
but  two  were  dug  out  and  mounted  again.  A  shell 
killed  every  man  in  one  section.  .  .  .  10.30  A.M. 
Lieut.  Edwards  was  killed.  .  .  .  Lieutenant  Craw- 
ford, who  was  most  gallant,  was  severely  wounded. 
.  .  .  Captain  Adamson,  who  had  been  handing  out 
ammunition,  was  hit  in  the  shoulder,  but  continued 
to  work  with  only  one  arm  useful.  .  .  .  Sergeant- 
Major  Frazer,  who  was  also  handing  out  ammunition 


36o    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  support  trenches,  was  killed  instantly  by  a  bullet 
in  the  head." 

At  10.30  only  four  officers  remained  fit  for  action. 
All  were  lieutenants.  The  ranking  one  of  these  was 
Niven,  in  command  after  Gault  was  wounded  at  7  A.  M. 
We  have  all  met  the  Niven  type  anywhere  from  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Arctic  Circle,  the  high-strung, 
wiry  type,  who  moves  about  too  fast  to  carry  any  loose 
flesh  and  accumulates  none  because  he  does  move 
about  so  fast.  A  little  man  Niven,  a  rancher,  a  horse- 
man, with  a  good  education  and  a  knowledge  of  men. 
He  rather  fits  the  old  saying  about  licking  his  weight 
in  wild  cats  —  wild  cats  being  nearer  his  size  than 
lions  or  tigers. 

Eight  months  before  he  had  not  known  any  more 
about  war  than  thousands  of  other  Canadians  of  his 
type,  except  that  soldiers  carried  rifles  over  their 
shoulders  and  kept  step.  But  he  had  "  Fanny  "  Far- 
quhar  of  the  British  army  for  his  teacher;  and  he 
studied  the  book  of  war  in  the  midst  of  shells  and 
bullets  —  which  means  that  the  lessons  stick  in  the 
same  way  as  the  lesson  the  small  boy  receives  when 
he  touches  the  red-hot  end  of  a  poker  to  see  how  it 
feels. 

Writing  In  the  midst  of  ruined  trenches  rocked  by 
the  concussion  of  shells,  every  message  he  sent  that 
day,  every  report  he  made  by  orderly  after  the  wires 
were  down  was  written  out  very  explicitly  —  which 
Farquhar  had  taught  him  was  the  army  way.  The 
record  is  there  of  his  coolness  when  the  lid  was  blown 
off  of  hell.  For  all  you  can  tell  by  the  firm  chlrog- 
raphy  he  might  have  been  sending  a  note  to  a  ranch 
foreman. 

After  his  communications  were  cut,  he  was  not  cer 


THE  MAPLE  LEAF  FOLK  361 

tain  how  much  support  he  had  on  his  flanks.  It 
looked  for  a  time  as  if  he  had  none.  After  the  first 
charge  was  repulsed  he  made  contact  with  the  King's 
Royal  Rifle  Corps  on  his  right.  He  knew  from  the 
nature  of  the  first  German  charge  that  the  second 
would  be  worse  than  the  first.  The  Germans  had  ad- 
vanced some  machine  guns;  they  would  be  able  to 
place  their  increased  artillery  fire  more  accurately. 
Again  green  figures  started  down  that  hill  and  again 
they  were  put  back.  Then  Niven  was  able  to  estab* 
lish  contact  with  the  Shropshire  Light  Infantry,  an- 
other regiment  on  his  left.  So  he  knew  that  right 
and  left  he  was  supported  —  and  by  seasoned  British 
regulars.  This  was  very,  very  comforting  —  espe- 
cially so  when  German  machine  gun  fire  was  not  only 
coming  from  the  front  but  in  enfilade  —  which  is  so 
trying  to  a  soldier's  steadiness.  In  other  words,  the 
P.  P's  were  shooting  at  Germans  in  front  while  bul- 
lets were  whipping  crosswise  of  their  trenches  and 
of  the  regulars  on  their  flanks,  too.  Some  of  the 
German  infantrymen  who  had  not  been  hit  or  had 
not  fallen  back  had  dug  themselves  cover  and  were 
firing  at  a  closer  range. 

The  Germans  had  located  the  points  in  the  P.  P's' 
trench  occupied  by  the  machine  guns.  At  least,  they 
could  put  these  hornets'  nests  out  of  business,  if  not  all 
the  individual  riflemen.  So  they  concentrated  high 
explosive  shells  on  them.  That  did  the  trick;  it  bur- 
ied them.  But  a  buried  machine  gun  may  be  dug  out 
and  fired  again.  It  may  be  dug  out  two  or  three  times 
and  keep  on  firing  as  long  as  it  will  work  and  there  is 
any  one  to  man  it. 

While  the  machine  guns  were  being  exhumed  every 
man  in  one  sector  of  the  trench  was  killed.     Then  the 


362    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

left  half  of  the  right  fire  trench  got  three  or  four 
shells  one  after  another  bang  into  it.  There  was  no 
trench  left:  only  macerated  earth  and  mangled  men. 
Those  emerging  alive  were  told  to  fall  back,  to  the 
communicating  trench.  Next  the  right  end  of  the 
left  fire  trench  was  blown  in.  When  the  survivors 
fell  back  to  the  communication  trench  that  was  also 
blown  in  their  face. 

"  Oh,  but  we  were  having  a  merry  party,"  as  Lieu- 
tenant Vandenberg  said. 

Niven  and  his  lieutenants  were  moving  here  and 
there  to  the  point  of  each  new  explosion  to  ascertain 
the  amount  of  the  damage  and  to  decide  what  was 
to  be  done  as  the  result.  One  soldier  described 
Niven's  eyes  as  sparks  emitted  from  two  holes  in  his 
dust-caked  face. 

Papineau  tells  how  a  tree  outside  the  trench  was 
cut  in  two  by  a  shell  and  its  trunk  laid  across  the 
breach  of  the  trench  caused  by  another  shell;  and 
lying  over  the  trunk  limp  and  lifeless  where  he  had 
fallen  was  a  man  killed  by  still  another  shell. 

"  I  remember  how  he  looked  because  I  had  to  step 
around  him  and  over  the  trunk,"  said  Papineau. 

Unless  you  did  have  to  step  around  a  dead  or 
wounded  man  there  was  no  time  to  observe  his  ap- 
pearance; for  by  noon  there  were  as  many  dead  and 
wounded  in  the  P.  P's'  trench  as  there  were  men  fit 
for  action. 

Those  unhurt  did  not  have  to  be  steadied  by  their 
superiors.  Knocked  dov/n  by  a  concussion  they 
sprang  up  with  the  promptness  of  disgust  of  one 
thrown  off  a  horse  or  tripped  by  a  wire.  When  told 
to  move  from  one  part  of  the  trench  to  another  where 
there  was  desperate  need,  a  word  was  sufficient  direc- 


THE  MAPLE  LEAF  FOLK  363 

tion.  They  understood  what  was  wanted  of  them, 
these  veterans.  They  went.  They  seized  every  lull 
to  drop  the  rifle  for  the  spade  and  repair  the  breaches. 
When  they  were  not  shooting  they  were  digging. 
The  officers  had  only  to  keep  reminding  them  not  to 
expose  themselves  In  the  breaches.  For  In  the  thick 
of  It  —  and  the  thicker  the  more  so  —  they  must  try 
to  keep  some  dirt  between  all  of  their  bodies  except 
the  head  and  arm  which  must  be  up  In  order  to  fire. 

At  1.30  a  cheer  rose  from  that  trench.  It  was  for 
a  platoon  of  the  King's  Royal  Rifles  which  had  come 
as  reinforcement.  Oh,  but  that  band  of  Tommies  did 
look  good  to  the  P.  P's!  And  the  little  prize  pack- 
age that  the  very  reliable  Mr.  Atkins  had  with  him  — 
the  machine  gun !  You  can  always  count  on  Mr.  At- 
kins to  remain  "  among  those  present "  to  the  last  on 
such  occasions. 

Now  NIven  got  word  by  messenger  to  go  to  the 
nearest  point  where  the  telephone  was  working  and 
tell  the  brigade  commander  the  complete  details  of 
the  situation.  The  brigade  commander  asked  him  if 
he  could  stick,  and  he  said  "  Yes,  sir!  "  which  Is  what 
Col.  "  Fanny "  Farquhar  would  have  said.  That 
trip  was  hardly  what  could  be  called  peaceful.  The 
orderly  whom  NIven  had  with  him  both  going  and 
coming  was  hit  by  high  explosive  shells.  NIven  Is  so 
small  —  It  Is  very  difficult  to  hit  him.  He  Is  about  up 
to  Major  Gault's  shoulder. 

He  had  been  worrying  about  his  supply  of  rifle  car- 
tridges. There  were  not  enough  to  take  care  of  an- 
other German  Infantry  charge  which  was  surely  com- 
ing. After  repelling  two  charges,  think  of  failing  to 
repel  the  third  for  want  of  ammunition!  Think  of 
Corporal  Christy,  the  bear-hunter,  with  the  Germans 


364    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

thick  in  front  of  him  and  no  bullets  for  his  rifle  I 
But  appeared  again  Mr.  Thomas  Atkins  —  another 
platoon  of  him  with  twenty  boxes  of  cartridges  which 
were  rather  a  risky  burden  to  bring  through  the  shell 
fire.  The  relief  as  these  were  distributed  was  that  of 
having  something  at  your  throat  which  threatens  to 
strangle  you  removed. 

Making  another  tour  of  his  trenches  about  four  in 
the  afternoon,  Niven  found  that  there  was  a  gap  of 
fifty  yards  between  his  left  and  the  right  of  the  ad- 
joining regiment.  Fifty  yards  is  the  inch  on  the  end 
of  a  man's  nose  in  trench  warfare  on  such  an  occasion. 
He  was  able  to  place  eight  men  in  that  gap.  At  least, 
they  could  keep  a  lookout  and  tell  him  what  was  going 
on. 

It  was  not  cheering  news  either  to  learn  a  little 
later  that  the  regiments  on  his  left  had  withdrawn  to 
trenches  about  three  hundred  yards  to  the  rear  —  a 
long  distance  in  trench  warfare.  But  the  P.  P's  had 
no  time  for  retirement.  They  could  have  gone  only 
In  the  panic  of  men  who  think  of  nothing  In  their  de- 
moralisation except  to  flee  from  the  danger  in  front 
without  thinking  that  there  may  be  more  danger  to  the 
rear.  They  were  held  where  they  were  under  what 
cover  they  had  by  the  renewed  blasts  of  shells  —  put- 
ting the  machine  guns  out  of  action  again  —  which 
suddenly  ceased;  for  the  Germans  were  coming  on 
again. 

Now  was  the  supreme  effort.  It  was  as  a  night- 
mare In  which  only  the  objective  of  effort  Is  recalled 
and  all  else  is  a  vague  struggle  of  all  the  strength  one 
can  exert  against  smothering  odds.  No  use  to  ask 
these  men  what  they  thought.  What  do  you  think 
when  you  are  climbing  up  a  rope  whose  strands  are 


THE  MAPLE  LEAF  FOLK  365 

breaking  over  the  edge  of  a  precipice?  You  climb  — 
that  is  all. 

The  P.  P's  shot  at  Germans.  After  a  night  with- 
out sleep,  after  a  day  among  their  dead  and  wounded, 
after  the  torrents  of  shell-fire,  after  breathing  smoke, 
dust  and  gas,  these  veterans  were  in  a  state  of  exalta- 
tion entirely  unconscious  of  dangers  of  their  surround- 
ings, mindless  of  what  came  next,  automatically  shoot- 
ing to  kill  as  they  were  trained  to  do,  even  as  a  man 
pulls  with  every  ounce  of  strength  he  has  in  him  in  a 
close  finish  of  a  boat  race. 

Corporal  Dover  had  to  give  up  firing  his  machine 
gun  at  last.  Wounded,  he  had  dug  it  out  of  the  earth 
after  an  explosion  and  set  it  up  again.  The  explosion 
that  destroyed  the  gun  finally  crushed  his  leg  and  arm. 
He  crawled  out  of  the  debris  towards  the  support 
trench  which  had  become  the  fire  trench,  only  to  be 
killed  by  a  bullet. 

The  Germans  got  possession  of  a  section  of  the  P. 
P's'  trench  where,  it  is  believed,  no  Canadians  were 
left.  But  the  German  effort  died  there.  It  could  get 
no  farther.  This  was  as  near  to  Ypres  as  the  Ger- 
mans were  to  go  in  this  direction.  When  the  day's 
•work  was  done  and  there  in  sight  of  the  field  scattered 
with  German  dead,  the  P.  P's  counted  their  numbers. 
Of  the  635  men  who  had  begun  the  fight  at  daybreak 
one  hundred  and  fifty  men  and  four  officers,  Niven, 
Papineau,  Clark  and  Vandenberg,  remained  fit  for 
duty. 

Papineau  is  a  young  lawyer  of  Montreal,  who  had 
already  won  the  Military  Cross  for  bombing  Germans 
out  of  a  sap  at  St.  Eloi.  Vandenberg  is  a  Dutchman 
—  but  mostly  he  is  Vandenberg.  To  him  the  call  of 
youth  is  the  call  to  arms.     He  knows  the  roads  of 


366    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Europe  and  the  roads  of  Chihuahua.  He  was  at 
home  fighting  with  Villa  at  Zacatecas  and  at  home 
fighting  with  the  P.  P's  in  front  of  Ypres. 

Darkness  found  all  the  survivors  among  the  P.  P's 
in  the  support  and  communication  trenches.  The  fire 
trench  had  become  an  untenable  dust-heap.  They 
crept  out  only  to  bring  in  any  wounded  unable  to  help 
themselves;  and  wounded  and  rescuers  were  more  than 
once  hit  in  the  process.  It  was  too  dangerous  to  at- 
tempt to  bury  the  dead,  who  were  in  the  fire  trench. 
Most  of  them  had  already  been  buried  by  shells.  For 
them  and  for  the  dead  in  the  support  trenches  interred 
by  their  living  comrades  Niven  recited  such  portions  as 
he  could  recall  of  the  Church  of  England  service  for 
the  dead  —  recited  them  with  a  tight  throat.  Then, 
the  P.  P's,  unbeaten,  marched  out,  leaving  the  position 
to  their  relief,  a  battahon  of  the  King's  Royal  Rifle 
Corps. 

Eighteen  hundred  strong  they  had  come  out  to 
France;  and  after  they  had  repulsed  German  charges 
in  the  midst  of  shells  that  mauled  their  trenches  at 
Hooge  on  that  indescribable  day  of  May  8th,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  were  able  to  bear  arms  and  little 
Lieutenant  Niven,  polo  player  and  horseman,  who 
had  entered  as  a  private,  was  in  command.  Corporal 
Christy,  bear-hunter  of  the  Northwest,  who  could 
"  shoot  the  eyes  off  an  ant,"  by  some  miracle  had  es- 
caped without  a  scratch.  All  the  praise  that  the 
P.  P's,  millionaire  or  labourer,  scapegrace  or  respect- 
able pillar  of  society,  ask  is  that  they  were  worthy  of 
fighting  side  by  side  with  Mr.  Thomas  Atkins,  regular. 
At  best  one  poor  little  finite  mind  only  observes 
through  a  rift  in  the  black  smoke  and  yellow  smoke  of 
high  explosives  and  the  clouds  of  dust  and  military 


THE  MAPLE  LEAF  FOLK  367 

secrecy  something  of  what  has  happened  in  a  small 
section  of  that  long  line  from  Switzerland  to  the  North 
Sea  many  times;  and  this  is  given  here. 

Leaning  against  the  wall  in  a  corner  of  the  dining- 
room  of  the  French  chateau  were  the  P.  P's'  colours. 
Major  Niven  took  off  the  wrapper  in  order  that  I 
might  see  the  flag  with  the  initials  of  the  battalion 
which  Princess  Patricia  embroidered  with  her  own 
hands.  There's  room,  one  repeats,  for  a  little  senti- 
ment and  a  little  emotion,  too,  between  Halifax  and 
Vancouver. 

"  Of  course  we  could  not  take  our  colours  into 
action,"  said  Niven.  "  They  would  have  been  torn 
into  tatters  or  buried  in  a  shell  crater.  But  we've  al- 
ways kept  them  up  at  battalion  headquarters.  I  be- 
lieve we  are  the  only  battalion  that  has.  We  prom- 
ised the  Princess  that  we  would." 

In  her  honour  an  old  custom  has  been  renewed  in 
France:  knights  are  fighting  in  the  name  of  a  fair 
lady. 


XXVI 

FINDING   THE   BRITISH    FLEET 

The  Briton's  island  instinct  —  Secrecy  surrounding  the  fleet  —  The 
magic  message  —  The  journey  —  A  night  drive  along  the  bleak 
coast  of  Scotland  —  Boy  scouts  as  sentries  —  An  obdurate  guard 
—  The  navy  yard  —  The  Admiral's  "quarter  deck" — The 
largest  contract  in  all  England  —  Great  dry  docks  —  Patriots  ia 
workmen's  clothes. 

The  Briton's  national  self-consciousness  is  surrounded 
by  salt  water.  His  island  instinct  is  only  another 
word  for  sea  instinct.  Ebb  and  flow  of  war  on  the 
Continent,  play  of  party  politics  at  home,  optimism 
and  pessimism  wrestling  in  the  press  —  in  the  back,  of 
his  head  he  was  thinking  of  the  navy. 

During  the  first  year  of  the  war  all  other  curtain^ 
of  military  secrecy  were  parted  at  intervals;  but  the 
world  of  British  naval  operations  seemed  hermetically 
sealed.  One  could  only  imagine  what  the  Grand  Fleet 
was  like.  He  had  despaired  of  ever  seeing  it  in  the 
life,  when  good  fortune  slipped  a  message  across  the 
Channel  to  the  British  front,  which  became  the  magic 
carpet  of  transition  from  the  burrowing  army  in  its 
trenches  to  the  solid  decks  of  battleships;  which 
changed  the  war  correspondent's  modern  steed,  the 
automobile,  trailing  dust  over  French  roads,  to  de- 
stroyers trailing  foam  in  choppy  seas  off  English 
coasts. 

But  not  all  the  journeying  was  on  destroyers.  One 
must  travel  by  car  also  if  he  would  know  something 
of  the  intricate,  busy  world  of  the  Admiralty's  work, 

368 


FINDING  THE  BRITISH  FLEET     369 

which  makes  coastguards  a  part  of  Its  personnel. 
There  was  more  than  ships  to  see;  more  than  one  place 
to  go  in  that  wonderful  week. 

The  transition  is  less  sudden  if  we  begin  with  the 
career  of  an  open  car  along  the  coast  of  Scotland  in 
the  night.  Dusk  had  fallen  on  the  purple  cloud-lands 
of  heather  dotted  with  the  white  spots  of  grazing 
sheep  In  the  Scotch  highlands  under  changing  skies, 
with  headlands  stretching  out  into  the  misty  reaches 
of  the  North  Sea,  forbidding  in  the  chill  air  after  the 
warmth  of  France  and  suggestive  of  the  uninviting 
theatre  where.  In  approaching  winter,  patrols  and 
trawlers  and  mine-sweepers  carried  on  their  work  to 
within  range  of  the  guns  of  Heligoland.  A  people 
who  lived  in  such  a  chill  land,  in  sight  of  such  a  chill 
sea,  and  who  spoke  of  their  "  bonnle  Scotland  for- 
ever," were  worthy  to  be  masters  of  that  sea. 

The  Americans  who  think  of  Britain  as  a  small  is- 
land forget  the  distance  from  Land's  End  to  John  o' 
Groat's,  which  represents  coast  line  to  be  guarded; 
and  we  may  find  a  lesson,  too,  we  who  must  make  our 
real  defence  by  sea,  of  tireless  vigils  which  may  be  our 
own  if  the  old  Armageddon  beast  ever  comes  threaten- 
ing the  far-longer  coast  line  that  we  have  to  defend. 
For  you  may  never  know  what  war  Is  till  war  comes. 
Not  even  the  Germans  knew,  though  they  had  prac- 
tised with  a  lifelike  dummy  behind  the  curtains  for 
forty  years. 

At  Intervals,  just  as  in  the  military  zone  in  France, 
sentries  stopped  us  and  took  the  number  of  our  car; 
but  this  time  sentries,  who  were  guarding  a  navy's 
rather  than  an  army's  secrets.  With  darkness  we 
passed  the  light  of  an  occasional  inn,  while  cottage 
lights  made   a   scattered  sprinkling  among  the   dim 


370    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

masses  of  the  hills.  One  wondered  where  all  the 
kilted  Highland  soldiers  whom  he  had  seen  at  the 
front  came  from,  without,  I  trust,  disclosing  any  mili- 
tary secret  that  the  canny  Highlanders  enhst  Low- 
landers  in  kilty  regiments. 

The  Frenchmen  of  our  party  —  M.  Stephen  Pichon, 
former  Foreign  Minister,  M.  Rene  Bazin,  of  the 
Academic  Frangaise,  M.  Joseph  Reinach,  of  the 
Figaro,  M.  Pierre  Mille,  of  Le  Temps,  and  M.  Henri 
Ponsot  —  who  had  never  been  in  Scotland  before, 
were  on  the  lookout  for  a  civilian  Scot  in  kilts  and 
were  grievously  disappointed  not  to  find  a  single  one. 

That  night  ride  convinced  me  that  however  many 
Germans  might  be  moving  about  in  England  under  the 
guise  of  cockney  or  of  Lancashire  dialects  in  quest  of 
information,  none  has  any  chance  in  Scotland.  He 
could  never  get  the  burr,  I  am  sure,  unless  born  in 
Scotland;  and  if  he  were,  once  he  had  it  the  triumph 
ought  to  make  him  a  Scotchman  at  heart. 

The  officer  of  the  Royal  Navy,  who  was  In  the  car 
with  me,  confessed  to  less  faith  In  his  symbol  of 
authority  than  In  the  generations'-bred  burr  of  our 
chauffeur  to  carry  conviction  of  our  genuineness;  so 
arguments  were  left  to  him  and  successfully.  Including 
two  or  three  with  Scotch  cattle,  which  seemed  to  be 
co-operating  with  the  sentries  to  block  the  road. 

After  an  hour's  run  inland  and  the  car  rose  over  a 
ridge  and  descended  on  a  sharp  grade,  In  the  distance 
under  the  moonlight  we  saw  the  floor  of  the  sea  again, 
melting  into  opaqueness,  with  curving  fringes  of  foam 
along  the  Irregular  shore  cut  by  the  indentations  of  the 
firths.  Now  the  sentries  were  more  frequent  and 
more  particular.     Our  single  light  gave  dim  form  to 


FINDING  THE  BRITISH  FLEET     371 

the  figures  of  sailors,  soldiers,  and  boy  scouts  on 
patrol. 

"  They've  done  remarkably  well,  these  boys!  "  said 
the  officer.  "  Our  fears  that,  boylike,  they  would  see 
all  kinds  of  things  which  didn't  exist  were  quite  need- 
less. The  work  has  taught  them  a  sense  of  responsi- 
bility which  will  remain  with  them  after  the  war,  when 
their  experience  will  be  a  precious  memory.  They 
realise  that  it  isn't  play,  but  a  serious  business,  and  act 
accordingly." 

With  all  the  houses  and  the  countryside  dark,  the 
rays  of  our  lamp  seemed  an  invading  comet  to  the  men 
who  held  up  lanterns  with  red  twinkles  of  warning. 

"  The  patrol  boats  have  complained  about  your 
lights,  sir!  "  said  one  obdurate  sentry. 

We  looked  out  into  the  black  wall  in  the  direction 
of  the  sea  and  could  see  no  sign  of  a  patrol  boat. 
How  had  It  been  able  to  inform  this  lone  sentry  of 
that  flying  ray  which  disclosed  the  line  of  a  coastal 
road  to  any  one  at  sea  ?  He  would  not  accept  the  best 
argumentative  burr  that  our  chauffeur  might  produce 
as  sufficient  explanation  or  guarantee.  Most  Scottish 
of  Scots  In  physiognomy  and  shrewd  matter-of-fact- 
ness,  as  revealed  in  the  glare  of  the  lantern,  he  might 
have  been  on  watch  in  the  Highland  fastnesses  in 
Prince  Charlie's  time. 

"  Captain  R ,  of  the  Royal  Navy!  "  explained 

the  officer,  introducing  himself. 

"  I'll  take  your  name  and  address !  "  said  the  sentry. 

"  The  Admiralty.     I  take  the  responsibility." 

"As  ril  report,  sir!  "  said  the  sentry,  not  so  con- 
vinced but  he  burred  something  further  into  the  chauf- 
feur's ear. 


372    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

This  seems  to  have  little  to  do  with  the  navy,  but  It 
has  much,  Indeed,  as  a  part  of  an  unfathomable,  com- 
plicated business  of  guards  within  guards.  Intelligence 
battling  with  Intelligence,  deceiving  raiders  by  land  or 
sea,  of  those  responsible  for  the  safety  of  England 
and  the  mastery  of  the  seas. 

It  Is  from  the  navy  yard  that  the  ships  go  forth  to 
battle  and  to  the  navy  yard  they  must  return  for  sup- 
plies and  for  the  grooming  beat  of  hammers  In  the  dry 
dock.  Those  who  work  at  a  navy  yard  keep  the 
navy's  house;  welcome  home  all  the  family,  from 
Dreadnoughts  to  trawlers,  give  them  cheer  and  shelter, 
and  bind  up  their  wounds. 

The  quarter-deck  of  action  for  Admiral  Lowry, 
commanding  the  great  base  on  the  Forth,  which  was 
begun  before  the  war  and  hastened  to  completion  since, 
was  a  substantial  brick  office  building.  Adjoining  his 
office,  where  he  worked  with  engineers'  blue  prints  as 
well  as  with  sea  maps,  he  had  fitted  up  a  small  bed- 
room where  he  slept,  to  be  at  hand  if  any  emergency 
arose. 

Partly  we  walked,  as  he  showed  us  over  his  domain 
of  steam-shovels,  machine  shops,  cement  factories,  of 
building  and  repairs,  of  coaling  and  docking,  and  partly 
we  rode  on  a  car  that  ran  over  temporary  rails  laid 
for  trucks  loaded  with  rocks  and  dirt.  Borrowing 
from  Peter  to  pay  Paul,  a  river  bottom  had  been  filled 
in  back  of  the  quays  with  material  that  had  been  exca- 
vated to  form  a  vast  basin  with  cement  walls,  where 
squadrons  of  Dreadnoughts  might  rest  and  await  their 
turn  to  be  warped  into  the  great  dry  docks  which  open 
off  it  in  chasmlike  galleries. 
*'  The  largest  contract  in  all  England,"  said  the  con- 


FINDING  THE  BRITISH  FLEET     373 

tractor.  "  And  here  is  the  man  who  checks  up  my 
work,"  he  added,  nodding  to  the  lean,  Scotch  naval 
civil  engineer  who  was  with  us.  It  was  clear  from  his 
look  that  only  material  of  the  best  quality  and  work 
that  was  true  would  be  acceptable  to  this  canny  mentor 
of  efficiency. 

"And  the  workers?  Have  you  had  any  strikes 
here?" 

*'  No.  We  have  employed  double  the  usual  num- 
ber of  men  from  the  start  of  the  war,"  he  said.  "  I'm 
afraid  that  the  Welsh  coal  troubles  have  been  accepted 
as  characteristic.  Our  men  have  been  reasonable  and 
patriotic.  They've  shown  the  right  spirit.  If  they 
hadn't,  how  could  we  have  accomplished  that?  " 

We  were  looking  down  into  the  depths  of  a  dry 
dock  blasted  out  of  the  rock,  which  had  been  begun 
and  completed  within  the  year.  And  we  had  heard 
nothing  of  all  this  through  those  twelve  months !  No 
writer,  no  photographer,  chronicled  this  silent  labour! 
Double  lines  of  guards  surrounded  the  place  day  and 
night.  Only  tried  patriots  might  enter  this  world  of 
a  busy  army  in  smudged  workmen's  clothes,  bending 
to  their  tasks  with  that  ordered  discipline  of  indus- 
trialism which  wears  no  uniforms,  marches  without 
beat  of  drums,  and  toils  that  the  ships  shall  want  noth- 
ing to  ensure  victory. 


XXVII 

ON   A   DESTROYER 

Losing  one's  heart  to  the  British  navy — "Specialised  in  torpedo 
work" — Watching  for  submarines  —  Passing  a  flotilla  —  The 
eyes  of  the  navy  —  Cold  on  the  bridge  —  A  jumpy  sea  —  Look 
out  for  the  spray  —  A  symphony  in  mechanism  —  Around  a  bend 
and:  the  sea  povver  of  England! 

Now  we  were  on  our  way  to  the  great  thing  —  to  our 
look  behind  the  curtain  at  the  hidden  hosts  of  sea- 
power.  Of  some  eight  hundred  tons'  burden  our 
steed,  doing  eighteen  knots,  which  was  a  dog-trot  for 
one  of  her  speed. 

"  A  destroyer  is  Hke  an  automobile,"  said  the  com- 
mander. "  If  you  rush  her  all  the  time  she  wears 
out.     We  give  her  the  limit  only  when  necessary." 

On  the  bridge  the  zest  of  travel  on  a  dolphin  of  steel 
held  the  bridle  on  eagerness  to  reach  the  journey's  end. 
We  all  like  to  see  things  well  done  and  here  one  had 
his  first  taste  of  how  well  things  are  done  in  the 
British  navy,  which  did  not  have  to  make  ready  for 
war  after  the  war  began.  With  an  open  eye  one  went, 
and  the  experience  of  other  navies  as  a  balance  for  his 
observation;  but  one  lost  one's  heart  to  the  British 
navy  and  might  as  well  confess  it  now.  A  six  months' 
cruise  with  our  own  battleship  fleet  was  a  proper  in- 
troduction to  the  experience.  Never  under  any  flag 
not  my  own  did  I  feel  so  much  at  home. 

After  the  arduous  monotony  of  the  trenches  and 
after  the  traffic  of  London,  it  was  freedom  and  sport 
and  ecstasy  to  be  there,  with  the  rush  of  salt  air  on 

374 


ON  A  DESTROYER  375 

the  face !  Our  commander  was  under  thirty  years  of 
age;  and  that  destroyer  responded  to  his  will  like  a 
stringed  instrument.  He  seemed  a  part  of  her,  her 
nerves  welded  to  his. 

"  Specialised  in  torpedo  work,"  he  said,  in  answer 
to  a  question.  That  is  the  way  of  the  British  navy: 
to  learn  one  thing  well  before  you  go  on  with  another. 
If  in  the  course  of  it  you  learn  how  to  command,  larger 
responsibilities  await  you.     If  not  —  there's  retired 

pay. 

Inside  a  shield  which  sheltered  them  from  the  spray 
on  the  forward  deck,  significantly  free  of  everything 
but  that  four-inch  gun,  its  crew  was  stationed.  The 
commander  had  only  to  lean  over  and  speak  through 
a  tube  and  give  a  range,  and  the  music  began.  That 
tube  bifurcated  at  the  end  to  an  ear-mask  over  a 
youngster's  head;  a  youngster  who  had  real  sailor's 
smihng  blue  eyes,  like  the  commander's  own.  For 
hours  he  would  sit  waiting  In  the  hope  that  game 
would  be  sighted.  No  fisherman  could  be  more  pa- 
tient or  more  cheerful. 

"  Before  he  came  into  the  navy  he  was  a  chauffeur. 
He  likes  this,"  said  the  commander. 

"  In  case  of  a  submarine  you  do  not  want  to  lose 
any  time;  is  that  it?  " 

"  Yes,"  he  replied.  "  You  never  can  tell  when  we 
might  have  a  chance  to  put  a  shot  into  Fritz's  peri- 
scope or  ram  him  —  Fritz  is  our  name  for  sub- 
marines." 

Were  all  the  commanders  of  destroyers  up  to  his 
mark,  one  wondered.  How  many  more  had  the 
British  navy  caught  young  and  trained  to  such  quick- 
ness of  decision  and  in  the  art  of  imparting  it  to  his 
men? 


376    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Three  hundred  revolutions!  The  destroyer 
changed  speed.  Five  hundred!  She  changed  speed 
again. 

Out  of  the  mist  in  the  distance  flashed  a  white  rib- 
bon knot  that  seemed  to  be  tied  to  a  destroyer's  bow 
and  behind  it  another  destroyer,  and  still  others,  lean, 
catlike,  but  running  as  if  legless,  with  greased  bodies 
sliding  over  the  sea.  We  snapped  out  some  message 
to  them  and  they  answered  as  passing  birds  on  the 
wing  before  they  swept  out  of  sight  behind  a  headland 
with  uncanny  ease  of  speed.  How  many  destroyers 
had  England  running  to  and  fro  in  the  North  Sea, 
keen  for  the  chase  and  too  quick  at  dodging  and  too 
fast  to  be  in  any  danger  of  the  under-water  dagger 
thrust  of  the  assassins  whom  they  sought.  We  know 
the  figures  in  the  naval  lists,  but  there  cannot  be  too 
many.  They  are  the  eyes  of  the  navy;  they  gather 
information  and  carry  a  sting  in  their  torpedo  tubes. 

It  was  chilly  there  on  the  bridge,  with  the  prospect 
too  entrancing  not  to  remain  even  if  one  froze.  But 
here  stepped  in  naval  preparedness  with  thick,  short 
coats  of  llama  wool. 

"  Served  out  to  all  the  men  last  winter,  when  we 
were  in  the  thick  of  it  patrolling,"  the  commander  ex- 
plained.    "  Yo.u'll  not  get  cold  in  that !  " 

"  And  yourself?  "  was  suggested  to  the  commander. 

"  Oh,  it  is  not  cold  enough  for  that  in  September! 
We're  hardened  to  it.  You  come  from  the  land  and 
feel  the  change  of  air;  we  are  at  sea  all  the  time,"  he 
replied.  He  was  without  even  an  overcoat;  and  the 
ease  with  which  he  held  his  footing  made  land  lubbers 
feel  their  awkwardness. 

A  jumpy,  uncertain  tidal  sea  was  running.  Yet  our 
destroyer  ghded  over  the  waves,  cut  through  them, 


ON  A  DESTROYER  377 

played  with  them,  and  let  them  seem  to  play  with  her, 
all  the  while  laughing  at  them  with  the  power  of  the 
purring  vitals  that  drove  her  steadily  on. 

"  Look  out!  "  which  at  the  front  in  France  was  a 
signal  to  jump  for  a  "  funk  pit."  We  ducked,  as  a 
cloud  of  spray  passed  above  the  heavy  canvas  and 
clattered  like  hail  against  the  smokestack.  "  There 
won't  be  any  more !  "  said  the  commander.  He  was 
right.  He  knew  that  passage.  One  wondered  if  he 
did  not  know  every  gallon  of  water  in  the  North  Sea, 
which  he  had  experienced  in  all  its  moods. 

Sheltered  by  the  smokestack  down  on  the  main  deck, 
one  of  our  party,  who  loved  not  the  sea  for  its  own 
sake  but  endured  it  as  a  passageway  to  the  sight  of 
the  Grand  Fleet,  had  found  warmth,  if  not  comfort. 
Not  for  him  that  invitation  to  come  below  given  by 
the  chief  engineer,  who  rose  out  of  a  round  hole  with 
a  pleasant,  "  How  d'y  dol  "  air  to  get  a  sniff  of  the 
fresh  breeze,  wizard  of  the  mysterious  power  of  the 
turbines  which  sent  the  destroyer  marching  so  noise- 
lessly. He  was  the  one  who  transferred  the  captain's 
orders  Into  that  symphony  in  mechanism.  Turn  a 
lever  and  you  had  a  dozen  more  knots;  not  with  a  leap 
or  a  jerk,  but  like  a  cat's  sleek  stretching  of  muscles. 
Not  by  the  slightest  tremor  did  you  realise  the  acceler- 
ation; only  by  watching  some  stationary  object  as  you 
flew  past. 

Now  a  sweep  of  smooth  water  at  the  entrance  to  a 
harbour,  and  a  turn  —  and  there  It  was :  the  sea  power 
of  England  I 


XXVIII 

SHIPS   THAT    HAVE    FOUGHT 

The  "invisible"   fleet  —  No   chance   for   German    submarines  —  No 
end  to  the  greyish  blue-green  monsters  —  the   Queen  Elizabeth 

—  Sea-power  and  world  power  —  Ships  that  have  been  under 
fire  —  A  German  "mistake" — Sir  David  Beatty — "Youth  for 
action " —  On  board  the  Lion  —  Sensations  during  the  fighting 

—  Importance  of  accurate  marksmanship  —  Crashing  blasts  and 
the  scream  of  shells  —  Watching  the  hits  —  The  precious  turret 

—  Result  of  German  gunfire  —  A  city  of  steel  —  Its  brain-center 

—  A  panoply  of  tubes,  levers,  push-buttons  —  Methods  of  British 
gunfire  —  One  of  the  great  guns  —  Its  human  complement — The 
gun-pointer  —  From   the   upper    bridge  —  An   impressive   beauty 

—  The  chase  off  Heligoland  —  Safe  return  of  the  Lion. 

But  was  that  really  it?  That  spread  of  greyish  blue- 
green  dots  set  on  a  huge  greyish  blue-green  platter? 
One  could  not  discern  where  ships  began  and  water 
and  sky  which  held  them  suspended  left  off.  Invisible 
fleet  it  had  been  called.  At  first  glance  it  seemed  to 
be  composed  of  baffling  phantoms,  absorbing  the  tone 
of  its  background.  Admiralty  secrecy  must  be  the  re- 
sult of  a  naval  dislike  of  publicity. 

Still  as  if  they  were  rooted,  these  leviathans! 
How  could  such  a  shy,  peaceful  looking  array  send  out 
broadsides  of  twelve-  and  thirteen-five  and  fifteen-inch 
shells?  What  a  paradise  for  a  German  submarine! 
Each  ship  seemed  an  inviting  target.  Only  there 
were  many  gates  and  doors  to  the  paradise,  closed  to 
all  things  that  travel  on  and  under  the  water  without 
a  proper  identification.  Submarines  that  had  tried 
to  pick  one  of  the  locks  were  like  the  fish  who  found 

378 


SHIPS  THAT  HAVE  FOUGHT       379 

going  good  into  the  trap.  A  submarine  had  about  the 
same  chance  of  reaching  that  anchorage  as  a  German 
in  the  uniform  of  the  Kaiser's  Death's  Head  Hussars, 
with  a  bomb  under  his  arm,  of  reaching  the  vaults  of 
the  Bank  of  England. 

And  was  this  all  of  the  greatest  naval  force  ever 
gathered  under  a  single  command,  these  two  or  three 
lines  of  ships?  But  as  the  destroyer  drew  nearer  the 
question  changed.  How  many  more?  Was  there 
no  end  to  greyish  blue-green  monsters,  in  order  as  pre- 
cise as  the  trees  of  a  California  orchard,  appearing  out 
of  the  greyish  blue-green  background?  First  to  claim 
attention  was  the  Queen  Elizabeth,  with  her  eight  fif- 
teen-inch guns  on  a  platform  which  could  travel  at 
nearly  the  speed  of  the  average  railroad  train. 

The  contrast  of  sea  and  land  warfare  appealed  the 
more  vividly  to  one  fresh  from  the  front  in  France. 
What  infinite  labour  for  an  army  to  get  one  big  gun 
into  position!  How  heralded  the  snail-like  travels  of 
the  big  German  howitzer!  Here  was  ship  after  ship, 
whose  guns  seemed  innumerable.  One  found  it  hard 
to  realise  the  resisting  power  of  their  armour,  painted 
to  look  as  liquid  as  the  sea,  and  the  stability  of  their 
construction,  which  was  able  to  bear  the  strain  of  fir- 
ing the  great  shells  that  travelled  ten  miles  to  their 
target. 

Sea-power,  indeed!  And  world  power,  too,  there 
in  the  hollow  of  a  nation's  hand,  to  throw  in  whatever 
direction  she  pleased.  If  an  American  had  a  lump  in 
his  throat  at  the  thought  of  what  it  meant,  what  might 
it  not  mean  to  an  Englishm.an?  Probably  the  Eng- 
lishman would  say,  "  I  think  that  the  fleet  is  all  right, 
don't  you  ?  " 

Land-power,  too!     On  the  Continent  vast  armies 


38o    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

wrestled  for  some  square  miles  of  earth.  France  has, 
say,  three  million  soldiers;  Germany,  five;  Austria, 
four  —  and  England  had,  perhaps,  a  hundred  thou- 
sand men,  perhaps  more,  on  board  this  fleet  which  de- 
fended the  English  land  and  lands  far  over  seas  with- 
out firing  a  shot.  One  American  regiment  of  infantry 
is  more  than  sufficient  in  numbers  to  man  a  Dread- 
nought. How  precious,  then,  the  skill  of  that  crew! 
Man-power  is  as  concentrated  as  gun-power  with  a 
navy.  Ride  three  hundred  miles  in  an  automobile 
along  an  army  front,  with  glimpses  of  units  of  sol- 
diers, and  you  have  seen  little  of  a  modern  army. 
Here,  moving  down  the  lanes  that  separated  these 
grey  fighters,  one  could  compass  the  whole ! 

Four  gold  letters,  spelling  the  word  Lion,  awakened 
the  imagination  to  the  concrete  of  the  Bliicher  turning 
her  bottom  skyward  before  she  sank  off  the  Dogger 
Bank  under  the  fire  of  the  guns  of  the  Lion  and  of  the 
Tiger,  astern  of  her,  and  the  Princess  Royal  and  the 
New  Zealand,  of  the  latest  fashion  in  battle-cruiser 
squadrons  which  are  known  as  the  "  cat "  squadron. 
This  work  brought  them  into  their  own;  proved  how 
the  British,  who  built  the  first  Dreadnought,  have  kept 
a  little  ahead  of  their  rivals  in  construction.  With  al- 
most the  gun-power  of  Dreadnoughts,  better  than 
three  to  two  against  the  best  battleships,  with  the 
speed  of  cruisers  and  capable  of  overwhelming 
cruisers,  or  of  pursuing  any  battleship,  or  get- 
ting out  of  range,  they  can  run  or  strike,  as  they 
please. 

Ascend  that  gangway,  so  amazingly  clean,  as  were 
the  decks  above  and  below  and  everything  about  the 
Lion  or  the  Tiger,  and  you  were  on  board  one  of  the 
few  major  ships  which  had  been  under  heavy  fire. 


SHIPS  THAT  HAVE  FOUGHT        381 

Her  officers  and  men  knew  what  modern  naval  war 
was  like;  her  guns  knew  the  difference  between  the 
wall  of  cloth  of  a  towed  target  and  an  enemy's  wall  of 
armour. 

In  the  battle  of  Tsushima  Straits  battleships  had 
fought  at  three  and  four  thousand  yards  and  closed 
into  much  shorter  range.  Since  then,  we  had  had  the 
new  method  of  marksmanship.  Tsushima  ceased  to 
be  a  criterion.  The  Dogger  Bank  multiplied  the 
range  by  five.  A  hundred  years  since  England,  all 
the  while  the  most  powerfully  armed  nation  at  sea, 
had  been  in  a  naval  war  of  the  first  magnitude;  and 
to  the  Lion  and  the  Ti^er  had  come  the  test.  The 
Germans  said  that  they  had  sunk  the  Tiger;  but  the 
Tiger  afloat  purred  a  contented  denial. 

One  could  not  fail  to  Identify  among  the  group  of 
officers  on  the  quarter-deck  Vice-Admiral  Sir  David 
Beatty,  for  his  victory  had  Impressed  his  features  on 
the  public's  eye.  Had  his  portrait  not  appeared  in 
the  press,  one  would  have  been  inclined  to  say  that  a 
first  lieutenant  had  put  on  a  vice-admiral's  coat  by  mis- 
take. He  was  about  the  age  of  the  first  lieutenant  of 
our  own  battleships.  Even  as  It  was,  one  was  Inclined 
to  exclaim:  "  There  Is  some  mistake!  You  are  too 
young!  "  The  Who  Is  Who  book  says  that  he  Is  all 
of  forty-four  years  old  and  it  must  be  right,  though  It 
disagrees  with  his  appearance  by  five  years.  A  vice- 
admiral  at  forty-four!  A  man  who  Is  a  rear-admiral 
with  us  at  fifty-five  is  very  precocious.  And  all  the 
men  around  him  were  young.  The  British  navy  did 
not  wait  for  war  to  teach  again  the  lesson  of  "  youth 
for  action!"  It  saved  time  by  putting  youth  in 
charge  at  once. 

Their  simple  uniforms,  the  directness,  alertness,  and 


382    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

definiteness  of  these  officers,  who  had  been  with  a  fleet 
ready  for  a  year  to  go  Into  battle  on  a  minute's  notice, 
was  in  keeping  with  their  surroundings  of  decks 
cleared  for  action  and  the  absence  of  anything  which 
did  not  suggest  that  hitting  a  target  was  the  business 
of  their  life. 

"  I  had  heard  that  you  took  your  admirals  from  the 
school-room,"  said  one  of  the  Frenchmen,  "  but  I  be- 
gin to  believe  that  it  is  the  nursery." 

Night  and  day  they  must  be  on  watch.  No  easy- 
chairs;  their  shop  is  their  home.  They  must  have  the 
vitality  that  endures  a  strain.  One  error  in  battle  by 
any  one  of  them  might  wreck  the  British  Empire. 

It  is  difficult  to  write  about  any  man-of-war  and  not 
be  technical;  for  everything  about  her  seems  technical 
and  mechanical  except  the  fact  that  she  floats.  Her 
officers  and  crew  are  engaged  in  work  which  is  leger- 
dermain  to  the  civilian. 

"  Was  it  like  what  you  thought  it  would  be  after 
all  your  training  for  a  naval  action?  "  one  asked. 

"Yes,  quite;  pretty  much  as  we  reasoned  it  out," 
was  the  reply.  "  Indeed,  this  was  the  most  remark- 
able thing.  It  was  battle  practice  —  with  the  other 
fellow  shooting  at  you!  " 

The  fire-control  officers,  who  were  aloft,  all  agreed 
about  one  unexpected  sensation,  which  had  not  oc- 
curred to  any  expert  scientifically  predicating  what 
action  would  be  like.  They  are  the  only  ones  who 
may  really  "  see  "  the  battle  in  the  full  sense. 

*'  When  the  shells  burst  against  the  armour,"  said 
one  of  these  officers,  "  the  fragments  were  visible  as 
they  flew  about.  We  had  a  desire,  in  the  midst  of 
our  preoccupation  with  our  work,  to  reach  out  and 


SHIPS  THAT  HAVE  FOUGHT       383 

catch  them.    Singular  mental  phenomenon,  wasn't  it  ?  " 

At  eight  or  nine  thousand  yards  one  knew  that  the 
modern  battleship  could  tear  a  target  to  pieces.  But 
eighteen  thousand  —  was  accuracy  possible  at  that  dis- 
tance ? 

"  Did  one  in  five  German  shells  hit  at  that  range?  " 
I  asked. 

"No!" 

Or  in  ten?  No!  In  twenty?  Still  no,  though 
less  decisively.  One  got  a  conviction,  then,  that  the 
day  of  holding  your  fire  until  you  were  close  in  enough 
for  a  large  percentage  of  hits  was  past.  Accuracy 
was  still  vital  and  decisive,  but  generic  accuracy.  At 
eighteen  thousand  yards  all  the  factors  which  send  a 
thousand  or  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand  pounds 
of  steel  that  long  distance  cannot  be  so  gauged  that 
each  one  will  strike  in  exactly  the  same  line  when  ten 
issue  from  the  gun-muzzles  in  a  broadside.  But  if 
one  out  of  twenty  is  on  at  eighteen  thousand  yards,  it 
may  mean  a  turret  out  of  action.  Again,  four  or  five 
might  hit,  or  none.  So,  no  risk  of  waiting  may  be 
taken,  in  face  of  the  danger  of  a  chance  shot  at  long 
range.  It  was  a  chance  shot  which  struck  the  Lion's 
feed  tank  and  disabled  her  and  kept  the  cat  squadron 
from  doing  to  the  other  German  cruisers  what  they 
had  done  to  the  Bliicher. 

"  And  the  noise  of  it  to  you  aloft,  spotting  the 
shots?  "  I  suggested.  "  It  must  have  been  a  lonely 
place  in  such  a  tornado." 

"  Yes.  Besides  the  crashing  blasts  from  our  own 
guns  we  had  the  screams  of  the  shells  that  went  over 
and  the  cataracts  of  water  from  those  short  sprinkling 
the  ship  with  spray.     But  this  was  what  one  expected. 


384    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Everything  was  what  one  expected,  except  that  desire 
to  catch  the  fragments.  Naturally,  one  was  too  busy 
to  think  much  of  anything  except  the  enemy's  ships  — 
to  learn  where  your  shells  were  striking." 

*'You  could  tell?" 

"  Yes,  just  as  well  and  better  than  at  target  practice 
for  the  target  was  larger  and  solid.  It  was  enthrall- 
ing, that  watching  the  flight  of  our  shells  toward  their 
target." 

Where  were  the  scars  from  the  wounds?  One 
looked  for  them  on  both  the  Lion  and  the  Tiger. 
That  armour  patch  on  the  sloping  top  of  a  turret  might 
have  escaped  attention  if  it  had  not  been  pointed  out. 
A  shell  struck  there  and  a  fair  blow,  too.  And  what 
happened  inside?  Was  the  turret  gear  put  out  of 
order? 

To  one  who  has  lived  in  a  wardroom  a  score  of 
questions  were  on  the  tongue's  end.  The  turret  is  the 
basket  which  holds  the  precious  eggs.  A  turret  out 
of  action  means  two  guns  out  of  action;  a  broken 
knuckle  for  the  pugihst. 

Constructors  have  racked  their  brains  over  the  sub- 
ject of  turrets  in  the  old  contest  between  gun-power 
and  protection.  Too  much  gun-power,  too  little 
armour!  Too  much  armour,  too  little  gun-power! 
Off  the  Virginia  capes  we  have  pounded  antiquated 
battleships  with  shells  as  a  test,  with  sheep  inside  the 
turrets  to  see  if  life  could  survive.  But  in  the  last 
analysis  results  depend  on  how  good  is  your  armour, 
how  sound  your  machinery  which  rotates  the  turret. 
That  shell  did  not  go  through  bodily,  only  a  frag- 
ment, which  killed  one  man  and  woundecj  another. 
The  turret  would  still  rotate;  the  other  gun  remained 
in  action  and  the  one  under  the  shell-burst  was  soon 


SHIPS  THAT  HAVE  FOUGHT        385 

back  In  action.  Very  sati:  factory  to  the  naval  con- 
structors. 

Up  and  down  the  ail-but  perpendicular  steel  ladders 
with  their  narrow  steps,  and  through  the  winding  pas- 
sages below  decks  In  those  cities  of  steel,  one  followed 
his  guide,  receiving  so  much  Information  and  so  many 
impressions  that  he  was  confused  as  to  details  between 
the  two  veterans,  the  Lion,  which  was  hit  fifteen  times, 
and  the  Tiger,  which  was  hit  eight.  Wherever  you 
went  every  square  inch  of  space  and  every  bit  of  equip- 
ment seemed  to  serve  some  purpose. 

A  beautiful  hit.  Indeed,  was  that  Into  a  small  hooded 
aperture  where  an  observer  looked  out  from  a  turret. 
He  was  killed  and  another  man  took  his  place.  Fresh 
armour  and  no  sign  of  where  the  shot  had  struck. 
Then  below.  Into  a  compartment  between  the  side  of 
the  ship  and  the  armoured  barbette  which  protects  the 
delicate  machinery  for  feeding  shells  and  powder  from 
the  magazine  deep  below  the  water  to  the  guns. 

"  H was  killed  here.  Impact  of  the  shell  pass- 
ing through  the  outer  plates  burst  It  Inside;  and,  of 
course,  the  fragments  struck  harmlessly  against  the 
barbette." 

"  Bang  in  the  dugout!  "  one  exclaimed,  from  army 
habit. 

"  Precisely!     No  harm  done  next  door." 

Trench  traverses  and  "funk-pit  shelters"  for  lo- 
calising the  effects  of  shell-bursts  are  the  terrestrial 
expression  of  marine  construction.  No  one  shell  hap- 
pened to  get  many  men  either  on  the  Lion  or  the 
Tiger.  But  the  effect  of  the  burst  was  felt  in  the 
passages,  for  the  air-pressure  Is  bound  to  be  pro- 
nounced In  enclosed  spaces  which  allow  of  little  room 
for  the  expansion  of  the  gases. 


386    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Then  up  more  ladders  out  of  the  electric  light  into 
the  daylight,  hugging  a  wall  of  armour  whose  thick- 
ness was  revealed  in  the  cut  made  for  the  small  door- 
way which  you  were  bidden  to  enter.  Now  you  were 
in  one  of  the  brain-centres  of  the  ship,  where  the  action 
Is  directed.  Through  slits  in  that  massive  shelter  of 
the  hardest  steel  one  had  a  narrow  view.  Above 
them  on  the  white  wall  were  silhouetted  diagrams  of 
the  different  types  of  German  ships,  which  one  found 
in  all  observing  stations.  They  were  the  most  popu- 
lar form  of  mural  decoration  In  the  British  navy. 

Underneath  the  slits  was  a  literal  panoply  of  the 
brass  fittings  of  speaking-tubes  and  levers  and  push- 
buttons, which  would  have  puzzled  even  the  "  Hello, 
Central  "  girl.  To  look  at  them  revealed  nothing 
more  than  the  eye  saw;  nothing  more  than  the  face  of 
a  watch  reveals  of  the  character  of  Its  works.  There 
was  no  teUing  how  they  ran  in  duplicate  below  the 
water  line  or  under  the  protection  of  armour  to  the 
guns  and  the  engines. 

"  We  got  one  In  here,  too.  It  was  a  good  one!  " 
said  the  host. 

"  Junk,  of  course,"  was  how  he  expressed  the  re- 
sult. Here,  too,  a  man  stepped  forward  to  take  the 
place  of  the  man  who  was  killed,  just  as  the  first  lieu- 
tenant takes  the  place  of  a  captain  of  infantry  who 
falls.  With  the  whole  telephone  apparatus  blown  off 
the  wall,  as  it  were,  how  did  he  communicate? 

"There!  "  The  host  pointed  toward  an  opening 
at  his  feet.  If  that  failed  there  was  still  another  way. 
In  the  final  alternative,  each  turret  could  go  on  firing 
by  Itself.  So  the  Germans  must  have  done  on  the 
Bliicher  and  on  the  Gneisenau  and  the  Scharnhorst  in 
their  last  ghastly  moments  of  bloody  chaos. 


SHIPS  THAT  HAVE  FOUGHT       387 

"  If  this  is  carried  away  and  then  that  is,  why,  then, 
we  have — "  as  one  had  often  heard  officers  say  on 
board  our  own  ships.  But  that  was  hypothesis.  Here 
was  demonstration,  which  made  a  glimpse  of  the  Lion 
and  the  Tiger  so  interesting.  The  Lion  had  had  a 
narrow  escape  from  going  down  after  being  hit  in  the 
feed  tank;  but  once  in  dry  dock,  all  her  damaged  parts 
had  been  renewed.  Particularly  it  required  imagina- 
tion to  realise  that  this  tower  had  ever  been  struck; 
visually,  more  conv'incing  was  a  plate  elsewhere  which 
had  been  left  unpainted,  showing  a  spatter  of  dents 
from  shell-fragments. 

"  We  thought  that  we  ought  to  have  something  to 
prove  that  we  had  been  in  battle,"  said  the  host,  "  I 
think  Tve  shown  all  the  hits.     There  were  not  many." 

Having  seen  the  results  of  German  gun-fire,  we 
were  next  to  see  the  methods  of  British  gun-fire;  some- 
thing of  the  guns  and  the  men  who  did  things  to  the 
Germans.  One  stooped  under  the  overhang  of  the 
turret  armour  from  the  barbette  and  climbed  up 
through  an  opening  which  allowed  no  spare  room  for 
the  generously  built,  and  out  of  the  dim  light  appeared 
the  glint  of  the  massive  steel  breech  block  and  gun, 
set  in  its  heavy  recoil  mountings  with  roots  of  steel 
supports  sunk  into  the  very  structure  of  the  ship.  It 
was  like  other  guns  of  the  latest  improved  type ;  but  it 
had  been  in  action,  and  one  kept  thinking  of  this  fact 
that  gave  it  a  sort  of  majestic  prestige.  One  wished 
that  it  might  look  a  little  different  from  the  others,  as 
the  right  of  a  veteran. 

As  the  plugman  swung  the  breech  open  I  had  in 
mind  a  giant  plugman  on  the  U.  S.  S.  Connecticut 
whom  I  used  to  watch  at  drills  and  target  practice. 
Shall  I  ever  forget  the  flash  in  his  eye  if  there  were  a 


388    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

fraction  of  a  second's  delay  in  the  firing  after  the 
breech  had  gone  home !  The  way  in  which  he  made 
that  enormous  block  obey  his  touch  in  oily  obsequious- 
ness suggested  the  apotheosis  of  the  whole  business  of 
naval  war.  I  don't  know  whether  the  plugman  of  H. 
M.  S.  Lion  or  the  plugman  of  the  U.  S.  S.  Connecti- 
cut was  the  better.  It  would  take  a  superman  to  im- 
prove on  either. 

Like  the  block,  it  seemed  as  if  the  man  knew  only 
the  movements  of  the  drill;  as  if  he  had  been  bred 
and  his  muscles  formed  for  that.  One  could  conceive 
of  him  playing  diavolo  with  that  breech.  He  be- 
longed to  the  finest  part  of  all  the  machinery,  the  hu- 
man element,  which  made  the  parts  of  a  steel  machine 
play  together  in  a  beautiful  harmony. 

The  plugman's  is  the  most  showy  part;  others 
playing  equally  important  parts  are  in  the  cavern  be- 
low the  turret;  and  most  important  of  all  is  that  of 
the  man  who  keeps  the  gun  on  the  target,  whose  true 
right  eye  may  send  twenty-five  thousand  tons  of  battle- 
ship to  perdition.  No  one  eye  of  any  enlisted  man 
can  be  as  important  as  the  gun-pointer's.  His  the  eye 
and  the  nerve  trained  as  finely  as  the  plugman's 
muscles.  He  does  nothing  else,  thinks  of  nothing  else. 
In  common  with  painters  and  poets,  gun-pointers  are 
born  with  a  gift,  and  that  gift  is  trained  and  trained 
and  trained.  It  seems  simple  to  keep  right  on,  but  it 
is  not.  Try  twenty  men  in  the  most  rudimentary  test 
and  you  will  find  that  it  is  not;  then  think  of  the  nerve 
it  takes  to  keep  right  on  in  battle,  with  your  ship 
shaken  by  the  enemy's  hits. 

How  long  had  the  plugman  been  on  his  job?  Six 
years.  And  the  gun-pointer?  Seven.  Twelve  years 
is  the  term  of  enlistment  in  the  British  navy.     Not  too 


SHIPS  THAT  HAVE  FOUGHT       389 

fast  but  thoroughly,  is  the  British  way.  The  idea  is 
to  make  a  plugman  or  a  gun-pointer  the  same  kind  of 
expert  as  a  master  artisan  in  any  other  walk  of  life, 
by  long  service  and  selection. 

None  of  all  these  men  serving  the  two  guns  from 
the  depths  to  the  turret  saw  anything  of  the  battle, 
except  the  gun-pointer.  It  was  easier  for  them  than 
for  him  to  be  letter-perfect  in  the  test,  as  he  had  to 
guard  against  the  exhilaration  of  having  an  enemy's 
ship  instead  of  a  cloth  target  under  his  eye.  Super- 
drilled  he  was  to  that  eventuality;  super-drilled  all  the 
others  through  the  years,  till  each  one  knew  his  part 
as  well  as  one  knows  how  to  turn  the  key  in  the  lock 
of  his  bureau.  Used  to  the  shock  of  the  discharges 
of  their  own  guns  at  battle  practice,  many  of  the  crew 
did  not  even  know  that  their  ship  was  hit,  so  preoccu- 
pied was  each  with  his  own  duty,  which  was  to  go  on 
with  it  until  an  order  or  a  shell's  havoc  stopped  him. 
Every  mind  was  closed  except  to  the  thing  which  had 
been  so  established  by  drill  in  his  nature  that  he  did  it 
instinctively. 

A  few  minutes  later  one  was  looking  down  from  the 
upper  bridge  on  the  top  of  this  turret  and  the  black- 
lined  planking  of  the  deck  eighty-five  feet  below,  with 
the  sweep  of  the  firm  lines  of  the  sides  converging  to- 
ward the  bow  on  the  background  of  the  water.  Sud- 
denly the  ship  seemed  to  have  grown  large,  impres- 
sive; her  structure  had  a  rocklike  solidity.  Her 
beauty  was  in  her  unadorned  strength.  One  was  ab- 
sorbing the  majesty  of  a  city  from  a  cathedral  tower 
after  having  been  in  its  thoroughfares  and  seen  the 
detail  of  its  throbbing  industry. 

Beyond  the  Lion's  bow  were  more  ships,  and  port 
and  starboard  and  aft  were  still  more  ships.     The 


390    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

compass  range  filled  the  eye  with  the  stately  precision 
of  the  many  squadrons  and  divisions  of  leviathans. 
One  could  see  all  the  fleet.  This  seemed  to  be  the 
scenic  climax;  but  it  was  not,  as  we  were  to  learn  when 
we  should  see  the  fleet  go  to  sea.  Then  we  were  to  be- 
hold the  mountains  on  the  march. 

One  glanced  back  at  the  deck  and  around  the  bridge 
with  a  sort  of  relief.  The  infinite  was  making  him 
dizzy.  He  wanted  to  be  in  touch  with  the  finite  again. 
But  it  is  the  writer,  not  the  practical,  hardened  sea- 
man, who  is  affected  In  this  way.  To  the  seaman,  here 
was  a  battle-cruiser  with  her  sister  battle-cruisers 
astern,  and  there  around  her  were  Dreadnoughts  of 
different  types  and  pre-Dreadnoughts  and  cruisers  and 
all  manner  of  other  craft  which  could  fight  each  in  its 
way,  each  representing  so  much  speed  and  so  much 
metal  which  could  be  thrown  a  certain  distance. 

"  Homogeneity!  "  Another  favourite  word,  I  re- 
member, from  our  own  wardrooms.  Here  it  was  ap- 
plied in  the  large.  No  experimental  ships  there,  no 
freak  variations  of  type,  but  each  successive  type  as  a 
unit  of  action.  Homogeneous,  yes  —  remorselessly 
homogeneous.  The  British  do  not  simply  build  some 
ships;  they  build  a  navy.  And  of  course  the  experts 
are  not  satisfied  with  it;  if  they  were,  the  British  navy 
would  be  in  a  bad  way.  But  a  layman  was;  he  was 
overwhelmed. 

From  this  bridge  of  the  Lion  on  the  morning  of 
the  24th  of  January,  19 14,  Vice- Admiral  Sir  David 
Beatty  saw  appear  on  the  horizon  a  sight  inexpressibly 
welcome  to  any  commander  who  has  scoured  the  seas 
in  the  hope  that  the  enemy  will  come  out  in  the  open 
and  give  battle.  Once  that  German  battle-cruiser 
squadron  had  slipped  across  the  North  Sea  and,  under 


SHIPS  THAT  HAVE  FOUGHT       391 

cover  of  the  mist  which  has  ever  been  the  friend  of  the 
pirate,  bombarded  the  women  and  children  of  Scar- 
borough and  the  Hartlepools  with  shells  meant  to  be 
fired  at  hardened  adult  males  sheltered  behind 
armour;  and  then,  thanks  to  the  mist,  they  had  slipped 
back  to  Heligoland  with  cheering  news  to  the  women 
and  children  of  Germany.  This  time  when  they  came 
out  they  encountered  a  British  battle-cruiser  squadron 
of  superior  speed  and  power,  and  they  had  to  fight  as 
they  ran  for  home. 

Now,  the  place  of  an  admiral  is  in  his  conning 
tower  after  he  has  made  his  deployments  and  the  firing 
has  begun.  He,  too,  is  a  part  of  the  machine;  his 
position  defined,  no  less  than  the  plugman's  and  the 
gun-pointer's.  Sir  David  watched  the  ranging  shots 
which  fell  short  at  first,  until  finally  they  were  on,  and 
the  Germans  were  beginning  to  reply.  When  his 
staff  warned  him  that  he  ought  to  go  below,  he  put 
them  off  with  a  preoccupied  shake  of  his  head.  He 
could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  remain  where  he 
was,  instead  of  being  shut  up  looking  through  the  slits 
of  a  visor. 

But  an  admiral  is  as  vulnerable  to  shell-fragments 
as  a  midshipman,  and  the  staff  did  its  duty,  which  had 
been  thought  out  beforehand  like  everything  else. 
The  argument  was  on  their  side;  the  commander  really 
had  none  on  his.  It  was  then  that  Vice-Admiral 
Beatty  sent  Sir  David  Beatty  to  the  conning  tower, 
much  to  the  personal  disgust  of  Sir  David,  who  envied 
the  observing  officers  aloft  their  free  sweep  of  vision. 

Youth  in  Sir  David's  case  meant  suppleness  of  limbs 
as  well  as  youth's  spirit  and  dash.  When  the  Lion 
was  disabled  by  the  shot  in  her  feed  tank  and  had  to 
fall  out  of  line,  Sir  David  must  transfer  his  flag.     He 


392    MY.  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

signalled  for  his  destroyer,  the  Attack.  When  she 
came  alongside,  he  did  not  wait  on  a  ladder,  but 
jumped  on  board  her  from  the  deck  of  the  Lion.  An 
aged  vice-admiral  with  chalky  bones  might  have 
broken  some  of  them,  or  at  least  received  a  shock  to 
his  presence  of  mind. 

Before  he  left  the  Lion  Sir  David  had  been  the  first 
to  see  the  periscope  of  a  German  submarine  in  the 
distance,  which  sighted  the  wounded  ship  as  inviting 
prey.  Officers  of  the  Lion  dwelt  more  on  the  cruise 
home  than  on  the  battle.  It  was  a  case  of  being  towed 
at  five  knots  an  hour  by  the  Indomitable.  If  ever  sub- 
marines had  a  fair  chance  to  show  what  they  could  do 
it  was  then  against  that  battleship  at  a  snail's  pace. 
But  it  is  one  thing  to  torpedo  a  merchant  craft  and  an- 
other to  get  a  major  fighting  ship,  bristling  with  tor- 
pedo defence  guns  and  surrounded  by  destroyers. 
The  Lion  reached  port  without  further  injury. 


XXIX 

ON   THE    '*  INFLEXIBLE  " 

Veterans  of  the  Dardanelles — "The  range  of  them" — The  Falkland 
affair  —  The  "double  bluff"  on  von  Spec  —  The  intercepted 
British  wireless  —  Sturdee's  trap  —  Story  book  of  strategy  — 
The  Germans  go  down  with  their  colours  flying  —  Only  a  dis- 
ordered wardroom  —  The  chaplain's  anecdote  —  All  a  lark  for 
the  midshipman  —  Souvenirs  of  action. 

What  Englishman,  let  alone  an  American,  knows  the 
names  of  even  all  the  British  Dreadnoughts?  With  a 
few  exceptions,  the  units  of  the  Grand  Fleet  seem 
anonymous.  The  Warspite  was  quite  unknown  to  the 
fame  which  her  sister  ship  the  Queen  Elizabeth  had 
won.  For  "  Lizzie  "  was  back  in  the  fold  from  the 
Dardanelles;  and  so  was  the  Inflexible,  flagship  of  the 
battle  of  the  Falkland  Islands.  Of  all  the  ships  which 
Sir  John  Jellicoe  had  sent  away  on  special  missions, 
the  Inflexible  had  had  the  grandest  Odyssey.  She, 
too,  had  been  at  the  Dardanelles. 

The  Queen  Elizabeth  was  disappointing  so  far  as 
wounds  went.  She  had  been  so  much  in  the  public 
eye  that  one  expected  to  find  her  badly  battered,  and 
she  had  suffered  little,  indeed,  for  the  amount  of  sport 
sh  had  had  in  tossing  her  fifteen-inch  shells  across  the 
Gallipoli  peninsula  into  the  Turkish  batteries  and  the 
amount  of  risk  she  had  run  from  Turkish  mines. 
Some  of  these  monster  shells  contained  only  eleven 
thousand  shrapnel  bullets.  A  strange  business  for  a 
fifteen-inch  naval  gun  to  be  firing  shrapnel.  A  year 
ago  no   one  could  have  imagined  that  one   day  the 

393 


394    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

most  powerful  British  ship,  built  with  the  single 
thought  of  overwhelming  an  enemy's  Dreadnought, 
would  ever  be  trying  to  force  the  Dardanelles, 

The  trouble  was  that  she  could  not  fire  an  army 
corps  ashore  along  with  her  shells  to  take  possession 
of  any  batteries  she  put  out  of  action.  She  had  some 
grand  target  practice;  she  escaped  the  mines;  she  kept 
out  of  reach  of  the  German  shells,  and  returned  to  re- 
port to  Sir  John  with  just  enough  scars  to  give  zest  to 
the  recollection  of  her  extraordinary  adventure.  All 
the  fleet  was  relieved  to  see  her  back  in  her  proper 
place.  It  is  not  the  business  of  super-Dreadnoughts 
to  be  steaming  around  mine-fields,  but  to  be  surrounded 
by  destroyers  and  light  cruisers  and  submarines  safe- 
guarding her  giant  guns  which  are  depressed  and  ele- 
vated as  easily  as  if  they  were  drum-sticks.  One  had 
an  abrasion,  a  tracery  of  dents. 

"  That  was  from  a  Turkish  shell,"  said  an  officer. 
"  And  you  are  standing  where  a  shell  hit." 

One  looked  down  to  see  an  irregular  outline  of 
fresh  planking. 

''  An  accident  when  we  did  not  happen  to  be  out  of 
their  reach.     We  had  the  range  of  them,"  he  added. 

*'  The  range  of  them "  is  a  great  phrase.  Sir 
Frederick  Doveton  Sturdee  used  it  in  speaking  of  the 
battle  of  the  Falkland  Islands.  "  The  range  of 
them  "  seems  a  sure  prescription  for  victory.  Noth- 
ing in  all  the  history  of  the  war  appeals  to  me  as  quite 
so  smooth  a  bit  of  tactics  as  the  Falkland  affair.  It 
was  so  smooth  that  it  was  velvety;  and  it  is  worth  tell- 
ing again,  as  I  understand  It.  Sir  Frederick  is  an- 
other young  admiral.  Otherwise,  how  could  the 
British  navy  have  entrusted  him  with  so  important  a 
task?     He  is  a  different  type  from  Beatty,  who  in  an 


ON  THE  •'  INFLEXIBLE  "  395 

army  one  judges  might  have  been  in  the  cavalry. 
Along  with  the  peculiar  charm  and  alertness  which  we 
associate  with  sailors  —  they  imbibe  it  from  the  salt 
air  and  from  meeting  all  kinds  of  weather  and  all  kinds 
of  men,  I  think  —  he  has  the  quality  of  the  scholar, 
with  a  suspicion  of  merriness  in  his  eye. 

He  was  Chief  of  Staff  at  the  Admiralty  In  the  early 
stages  of  the  war,  which  means,  I  take  it,  that  he  as- 
sisted in  planning  the  moves  on  the  chessboard.  It 
fell  to  him  to  act;  to  apply  the  strategy  and  tactics 
which  he  planned  for  others  at  sea  while  he  sat  at  a 
desk.  It  was  his  wit  against  von  Spec's,  who  was  not 
deficient  in  this  respect.  If  he  had  been  he  might  not 
have  steamed  into  the  trap.  The  trouble  was  that 
von  Spee  had  some  wit,  but  not  enough.  It  would 
have  been  better  for  him  if  he  had  been  as  guileless  as 
a  parson. 

Sir  Frederick  is  so  gentle-mannered  that  one  would 
never  suspect  him  of  a  "  double  bluff,"  which  was  what 
he  played  on  von  Spee.  After  von  Spec's  victory  over 
Cradock,  Sturdee  slipped  across  to  the  South  Atlantic, 
without  any  one  knowing  that  he  had  gone,  with  a 
squadron  strong  enough  to  do  unto  von  Spee  what  von 
Spee  had  done  unto  Cradock. 

But  before  you  wing  your  bird  you  must  flush  him. 
The  thing  was  to  find  von  Spee  and  force  him  to  give 
battle;  for  the  South  Atlantic  is  broad  and  von  Spee, 
it  Is  supposed,  was  In  an  Emden  mood  and  bent  on 
reaching  harbour  in  German  Southwest  Africa, 
whence  he  could  sally  out  to  destroy  British  shipping 
on  the  Cape  route.  When  he  Intercepted  a  British 
wireless  message  —  Sturdee  had  left  off  the  sender's 
name  and  location  —  telling  the  plodding  old  Canopus 
seeking  home  or  assistance  before  von  Spee  overtook 


396    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

her,  that  she  would  be  perfectly  safe  In  the  harbour  at 
Port  William,  as  guns  had  been  erected  for  her  pro- 
tection, von  Spee  guessed  that  this  was  a  bluff,  and 
rightly.  But  it  was  only  Bluff  Number  One.  He 
steamed  to  the  Falklands  with  a  view  to  finishing  off 
the  old  Canopus  on  the  way  across  to  Africa.  There 
he  fell  foul  of  Bluff  Number  Two.  Sturdee  did  not 
have  to  seek  him;  he  came  to  Sturdee. 

There  was  no  convenient  Dogger  Bank  fog  in  that 
latitude  to  cover  his  flight.  Sturdee  had  the  speed  of 
von  Spee  and  he  had  to  fight.  It  was  the  one  bit  of 
strategy  of  the  war  which  is  like  that  of  the  story 
books  and  worked  out  as  the  strategy  always  does  in 
proper  story  books.  Practically  the  twelve-inch  guns 
of  the  Inflexible  and  the  Invincible  had  only  to  keep 
their  distance  and  hang  on  to  the  Scharnhorst  and  the 
Gneisenau  in  order  to  do  the  trick.  Light-weights  or 
middle-weights  have  no  business  trafficking  with 
heavy-weights  in  naval  warfare. 

"  Von  Spee  made  a  brave  fight,"  said  Sir  Frederick, 
**  but  we  kept  him  at  a  distance  that  suited  us,  without 
letting  him  get  out  of  range." 

He  had  had  the  fortune  to  prove  an  established  prin- 
ciple in  action.  It  was  all  in  the  course  of  duty,  which 
is  the  way  that  all  the  officers  and  all  the  men  look  at 
their  work.  Only  a  few  ships  have  had  a  chance  to 
fight  and  these  are  emblazoned  on  the  public  memory. 
But  they  did  no  better  and  no  worse,  probably,  than 
the  others  would  have  done.  If  the  public  singles  out 
ships,  the  navy  does  not.  Whatever  is  done  and  who- 
ever does  it,  why,  it  is  to  the  credit  of  the  family,  ac- 
cording to  the  spirit  of  service  that  promotes  uni- 
formity of  efficiency.  Leaders  and  ships  which  have 
won   renown   are   resolved   into   the   whole   in   that 


ON  THE  "  INFLEXIBLE  "  397 

harbour  where  the  fleet  is  the  thing;  and  the  good 
opinion  they  most  desire  is  that  of  their  fellows.  If 
they  have  that,  they  will  earn  the  public's  when  the 
test  comes. 

Belonging  to  the  class  of  the  first  of  battle-cruisers 
is  the  Inflexible,  which  received  a  few  taps  in  the 
Falklands  and  a  blow  that  was  nearly  the  death  of  her 
in  the  Dardanelles.     Tribute  enough  for  its  courage 

—  the  tribute  of  a  chivalrous  enemy  —  von  Spee's 
squadron  receives  from  the  officers  and  men  of  the  In- 
flexible, who  saw  them  go  down  into  the  sea  tinged 
with  sunset  red  with  their  colours  still  flying.  Then  in 
the  sunset  red  the  British  saved  as  many  of  those  afloat 
as  they  could. 

Those  dripping  German  officers  who  had  seen  one 
of  their  battered  turrets  carried  away  bodily  into  the 
sea  by  a  British  twelve-inch  shell,  who  had  endured  a 
fury  of  concussions  and  destruction,  with  steel  missiles 
cracking  steel  structures  into  fragments,  came  on  board 
the  Inflexible  looking  for  signs  of  some  blows  de- 
livered in  return  for  the  crushing  blows  that  had 
beaten  their  ships  into  the  sea  and  saw  none  until  they 
were  invited  into  the  wardroom,  which  was  in  chaos 

—  and  then  they  smiled. 

At  least,  they  had  sent  one  shell  home.  The  sight 
was  sweet  to  them,  so  sweet  that,  in  respect  to  the  feel- 
ing of  the  vanquished,  the  victor  held  silence  with  a 
knightly  consideration.  But  where  had  the  shell  en- 
tered? There  was  no  sign  of  any  hole.  Then  they 
learned  that  the  fire  of  the  guns  of  the  starboard  turret 
midships  over  the  wardroom,  which  was  on  the  port 
side,  had  deposited  a  great  many  things  on  the  floor 
which  did  not  belong  there;  and  their  expression 
changed.     Even  this  comfort  was  taken  from  them. 


398     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"  We  had  the  range  of  you !  "  the  British  explained. 

The  chaplain  of  the  Inflexible  was  bound  to  have  an 
anecdote.  I  don't  know  why,  except  that  a  chaplain's 
is  not  a  fighting  part  and  he  may  look  on.  His 
place  was  down  behind  the  armour  with  the  doctor, 
waiting  for  wounded.  He  stood  in  his  particular 
steel  cave  listening  to  the  tremendous  blasts  of  her 
guns  which  shook  the  Inflexible' s  frame,  and  still  no 
wounded  arrived.  Then  he  ran  up  a  ladder  to  the 
deck  and  had  a  look  around  and  saw  the  little  points 
of  the  German  ships  with  the  shells  sweeping  toward 
them  and  the  smoke  of  explosions  which  burst  on 
board  them.  It  was  not  the  British  who  needed  his 
prayers  that  day,  but  the  Germans. 

Perhaps  the  spirit  of  the  Inflexible' s  story  was  best 
given  by  a  midshipman  with  the  down  still  on  his 
cheek.  Considering  how  young  the  British  take  their 
officer-beginners  to  sea,  the  admirals  are  not  young, 
at  least,  in  point  of  sea  service.  He  got  more  out  of 
the  action  than  his  elders;  his  impressions  of  the  long 
cruises  and  the  actions  had  the  vividness  of  boyhood. 
Down  in  one  of  the  caves,  doing  his  part  as  the  shells 
were  sent  up  to  feed  the  thundering  guns  above,  the 
whispered  news  of  the  progress  of  the  battle  was 
passed  on  at  intervals  till,  finally,  the  guns  were  silent. 
Then  he  hurried  on  deck  in  the  elation  of  victory,  suc- 
ceeded by  the  desire  to  save  those  whom  they  had 
fought.  It  had  all  been  so  simple;  so  like  drill.  You 
had  only  to  go  on  shooting  —  that  was  all. 

Yes,  he  had  been  lucky.  From  the  Falklands  to 
the  Dardanelles,  which  was  a  more  picturesque  busi- 
ness than  the  battle.  Any  minute  off  the  Straits  you 
did  not  know  but  a  submarine  would  have  a  try  at  you 
or  you  might  bump  into  a  mine.     And  the  Inflexible 


ON  THE  "  INFLEXIBLE  '*  399 

did  bump  into  one.  She  had  two  thousand  tons  of 
water  on  board.  It  was  fast  work  to  keep  the  re- 
mainder of  the  sea  from  coming  in,  too,  and  the  same 
kind  of  dramatic  experience  as  the  Lion's  in  reaching 
port.  Yes,  he  had  been  very  lucky.  It  was  all  a  lark 
to  that  boy. 

"  It  never  occurs  to  midshipmen  to  be  afraid  of 
anything,"  said  one  of  the  officers.  "  The  more  dan- 
ger, the  better  they  like  it." 

In  the  wardroom  was  a  piece  of  the  mine  or  the 
torpedo,  whichever  it  was,  that  struck  the  Inflexible; 
a  strange,  twisted,  annealed  bit  of  metal.  Every  ship 
which  had  been  in  action  had  some  souvenir  which  the 
enemy  had  sent  on  board  in  anger  and  which  was  pre- 
served with  a  collector's  enthusiasm. 

The  Inflexible  seemed  as  good  as  ever  she  was. 
Such  is  the  way  of  naval  warfare.  Either  it  is  to  the 
bottom  of  the  sea  or  to  dry  docks  and  repairs.  There 
is  nothing  half  way.  So  it  is  well  to  take  care  that 
you  have  "  the  range  of  them." 


XXX 

ON   THE    FLEET    FLAGSHIP 

The  "  grande  dames"  of  the  fleet  —  The  boarding  —  Nelson's  heri- 
tage—  Guardians  of  the  peace  of  the  seas  —  Sir  John  Jellicoe 
—  The  China  seas  incident  —  The  compliment  returned  at 
Manila  Bay  —  Friends  in  the  service  —  That  command  of 
Joshua's  —  Waiting  and  watching  —  England's  true  genius  —  A 
complete  blockade  —  Intricate  and  concentrated  mechanism^ 
Personality  of  Sir  John  —  The  spirit  of  service. 

Thus  far  we  have  skirted  around  the  heart  of  things, 
which  in  a  fleet  is  always  the  commander-in-chief's 
flagship.  Our  handy,  agile  destroyer  ran  alongside 
a  battleship  with  as  much  nonchalance  as  she  would 
go  alongside  a  pier.  I  should  not  have  been  sur- 
prised to  have  seen  her  pirouette  over  the  hills  or  take 
to  flight. 

There  was  a  time  when  those  majestic  and  pampered 
ladies,  the  battleships  —  particularly  if  a  sea  were  run- 
ning as  there  was  in  this  harbour  at  the  time  —  hav- 
ing in  mind  the  pride  of  paint,  begged  all  destroyers 
to  keep  off  with  the  superciliousness  of  grandes  dames 
holding  their  skirts  aloof  from  contact  with  nimble, 
audacious  street  gamins,  who  dodged  in  and  out  of 
the  traffic  of  muddy  streets.  But  destroyers  have 
learned  better  manners,  perhaps,  and  battleships  have 
been  democratised.  It  is  the  day  of  Russian  dancers 
and  when  aeroplanes  loop  the  loop,  and  we  have  grown 
used  to  all  kinds  of  marvels. 

But  the  sea  has  refused  to  be  trained.  It  is  the 
same  old  sea  that  it  was  in  Columbus'  time,  without 

4(X) 


ON  THE  FLEET  FLAGSHIP         401 

any  loss  of  trickiness  in  bumping  small  craft  against 
towering  sides.  The  way  that  this  destroyer  slid  up 
to  the  flagship  without  any  fuss  and  the  way  her  blue- 
jackets held  off  from  the  paint  as  she  rose  on  the  crests 
and  slipped  back  into  the  trough,  did  not  tell  the  whole 
story.  A  part  of  it  was  how,  at  the  right  interval, 
they  assisted  the  landlubber  to  step  from  gunwale  to 
gangway,  making  him  feel  perfectly  safe  when  he 
would  have  been  perfectly  helpless  but  for  them. 

I  had  often  watched  our  own  bluejackets  at  the 
same  thing.  They  did  not  grin  —  not  when  you  were 
looking  at  them.  Nor  did  the  British.  Bluejackets 
are  noted  for  their  official  politeness.  I  should  like 
to  have  heard  their  remarks  —  they  have  a  gift  for 
remarks  —  about  those  invaders  of  their  uniformed 
world  in  Scotch  caps  and  other  kinds  of  caps  and  the 
different  kind  of  clothes  which  tailors  make  for  civil- 
ians. Without  any  intention  of  eavesdropping,  I  did 
overhear  one  asking  another  whence  came  these 
strange  birds. 

One  knew  the  flagship  by  the  admirals'  barges 
astern,  as  you  know  the  location  of  an  army  head- 
quarters by  its  automobiles.  It  seemed  in  the  centre 
of  the  fleet  at  anchor,  if  that  is  a  nautical  expression. 
Where  its  place  would  be  in  action  is  one  of  those 
secrets  as  important  to  the  enemy  as  the  location  of  a 
general's  shell-proof  shelter  in  Flanders.  Perhaps  Sir 
John  Jellicoe  may  be  on  some  other  ship  in  battle. 
If  there  is  any  one  foolish  question  which  one  should 
not  ask  it  is  this. 

As  one  mounted  the  gangway  of  this  mighty  super- 
Dreadnought  one  was  bound  to  think  of  another  flag- 
ship in  Portsmouth  harbour.  Nelson's  Victory  —  at 
least,   an  American  was.     Probably  an  Englishman 


402    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

would  not  indulge  in  such  a  commonplace.  One  would 
like  to  know  how  many  Englishmen  had  ever  seen  the 
old  Victory.  But,  then,  how  many  Americans  have 
been  to  Mount  Vernon  and  Gettysburg? 

It  was  a  hundred  years,  one  repeats,  since  the  Brit- 
ish had  fought  a  first-class  naval  war.  Nelson  did  his 
part  so  well  that  he  did  not  leave  any  fighting  to  be 
done  by  his  successors.  Maintaining  herself  as  mis- 
tress of  the  seas  by  the  threat  of  superior  strength  — 
except  in  the  late  fifties,  when  the  French  innovation 
of  iron  ships  gave  France  a  temporary  lead  on  paper 
—  ship  after  ship,  through  all  the  grades  of  progress 
in  naval  construction,  has  gone  to  the  scrap  heap  with- 
out firing  a  shot  in  anger. 

The  Victory  was  one  landmark,  or  seamark,  if  you 
please,  and  this  flagship  was  another.  Between  the 
two  were  generations  of  officers  and  men  working 
through  the  change  from  stagecoach  to  motors  and 
aeroplanes  and  seaplanes,  who  had  kept  up  to  a  stand- 
ard of  efficiency  in  view  of  a  test  that  never  came.  A 
year  of  war  and  still  the  test  had  not  come,  for  the  old 
reason  that  England  had  superior  strength.  Her  out- 
numbering guns  which  had  kept  the  peace  of  the  seas 
still  kept  it. 

All  second  nature  to  the  Englishman  this,  as  the 
defence  of  the  immense  distances  of  the  steppes  to  the 
Russian  or  the  Rocky  Mountain  wall  and  the  Missis- 
sippi's flow  to  the  man  in  Kansas.  But  the  American 
kept  thinking  about  it;  and  he  wanted  the  Kansans  to 
think  about  it,  too.  A  sentimentalist  envisaged  the 
tall  column  in  Trafalgar  Square,  with  the  one-armed 
figure  turned  toward  the  wireless  skein  on  top  of  the 
Admiralty  Building  when  he  went  on  board  the  flag- 
ship of  Sir  John  Jellicoe. 


ON  THE  FLEET  FLAGSHIP         403 

One  first  heard  of  Jellicoe  fifteen  years  ago  on  the 
China  coast,  when  he  was  Chief  of  Staff  to  Sir  Edward 
Seymour,  then  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Asiatic 
Squadron.  Indeed,  one  was  always  hearing  about 
Jelhcoe.  He  was  the  kind  of  man  whom  people  talk 
about  after  they  have  met  him,  which  means  person- 
ality. It  was  in  China  seas,  you  may  remember,  that 
when  a  few  British  seamen  were  hard  pressed  in  a 
fight  that  was  not  ours  that  the  phrase,  "  Blood  is 
thicker  than  water,"  sprang  from  the  lips  of  an  Amer- 
ican commander,  who  waited  not  on  international 
etiquette  but  went  to  the  assistance  of  the  British. 

Nor  will  any  one  who  was  present  in  the  summer 
of  '98  forget  how  Sir  Edward  Chichester  stood  loyally 
by  Admiral  George  Dewey,  when  the  German  squad- 
ron was  empire-fishing  in  the  waters  of  Manila  Bay, 
until  our  Atlantic  Fleet  had  won  the  battle  of  Santiago 
and  Admiral  Dewey  had  received  reinforcements  and, 
east  and  west,  we  were  able  to  look  after  the  Germans. 
The  British  bluejackets  said  that  the  rations  of  frozen 
mutton  from  Australia  which  we  sent  alongside  were 
excellent;  but  the  Germans  were  in  no  position  to 
judge,  as  none  was  sent  to  them,  doubtless  through  an 
oversight  in  the  detail  of  hospitality  by  one  of  Admiral 
Dewey's  staff.  No.  Let  us  be  officially  correct. 
We  happened  to  run  out  of  spare  mutton  after  serving 
the  British. 

In  the  gallant  effort  of  the  Allied  force  of  sailors 
to  relieve  the  legations  against  some  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  Boxers,  Captain  Bowman  McCalla  and  his 
Americans  worked  with  Admiral  Seymour  and  his 
Britons  in  the  most  trying  and  picturesque  thing  of 
its  kind  in  modern  history.  McCalla,  too,  was  always 
talking  of  Jellicoe,  who  was  wounded  on  the  expedi- 


404    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tion;  and  Sir  John's  face  lighted  at  mention  of  Mc- 
Calla's  name.  He  recalled  how  McCalla  had  painted 
on  the  superstructure  of  the  little  Newark  that  saying 
of  Farragut's,  "  The  best  protection  against  an  en- 
emy's fire  is  a  well-directed  fire  of  your  own  ";  which 
has  been  said  in  other  ways  and  cannot  be  said  too 
often. 

"We  called  McCalla  Mr.  Lead,"  said  Sir  John; 
"  he  had  been  wounded  so  many  times  and  yet  was 
able  to  hobble  along  and  keep  on  fighting.  I  cor- 
responded regularly  with  him  until  his  death." 

Beatty,  too,  was  on  that  expedition;  and  he,  too, 
was  another  personality  one  kept  hearing  about.  It 
seemed  odd  that  two  men,  who  had  played  a  part  in 
work  which  was  a  soldier's  far  from  home,  should 
have  become  so  conspicuous  in  the  Great  War.  If  on 
that  day  when,  with  ammunition  exhausted,  all  mem- 
bers of  the  expedition  had  given  up  hope  of  ever  re- 
turning alive,  they  had  not  accidentally  come  upon  the 
Shi-kou  arsenal,  one  would  not  be  commanding  the 
Great  Fleet  and  the  other  its  battle-cruiser  squad- 
ron. 

Before  the  war,  I  am  told,  when  Admiralty  lords 
and  others  who  had  the  decision  to  make  were  dis- 
cussing who  should  command  in  case  of  war,  opinion 
ran  something  like  this : 

"  Jellicoe !     He  has  the  brains !  " 

"  Jellicoe !  He  has  the  health  to  endure  the  strain, 
with  years  enough  and  not  too  many  I  " 

"  Jellicoe !     He  has  the  confidence  of  the  service !  " 

The  choice  literally  made  itself.  When  any  one  is 
undertaking  the  gravest  responsibility  which  has  been 
an  Englishman's  for  a  hundred  years,  that  kind  of  a 
recommendation  helps.     He  had  the  guns;  he  had 


ON  THE  FLEET  FLAGSHIP         405 

supreme  command;  he  must  deliver  victory  —  such 
was  England's  message  to  him. 

When  I  mentioned  in  a  despatch  that  all  that  differ- 
entiated him  from  the  officers  around  him  was  the 
broader  band  of  gold  lace  on  his  arm,  an  English  naval 
critic  wanted  to  know  if  I  expected  to  find  him  in  cloth 
of  gold.  No;  nor  in  full  dress  with  all  his  medals 
on,  as  I  saw  him  appear  on  the  screen  at  a  theatre  in 
London. 

Any  general  of  high  command  must  be  surrounded 
by  more  pomp  than  an  admiral  in  time  of  action.  A 
headquarters  cannot  have  the  simplicity  of  the  quarter- 
deck. The  force  which  the  general  commands  is  not 
in  sight;  the  admiral's  is.  You  saw  the  commander 
and  you  saw  what  it  was  that  he  commanded.  Within 
the  sweep  of  vision  from  the  quarter-deck  was  the 
terrific  power  which  the  man  with  the  broad  gold  band 
on  his  arm  directed.  At  a  signal  from  him  it  would 
move  or  it  would  stand  still.  That  command  of 
Joshua's  if  given  by  Sir  John  one  thought  might  have 
been  obeyed. 

One  hundred,  two  hundred,  three  hundred,  four 
hundred  twelve-inch  guns  and  larger,  which  could  carry 
a  hundred  tons  and  more  of  metal  in  a  single  broadside 
for  a  distance  of  eighteen  thousand  yards!  But  do 
not  forget  the  little  guns,  bristling  under  the  big  guns 
like  needles  from  a  cushion,  which  would  keep  off  the 
torpedo  assassins;  or  the  light  cruisers,  or  the  colliers, 
or  the  destroyers,  or  the  2,300  trawlers  and  mine- 
layers, and  what  not,  all  under  his  direction.  He  had 
submarines,  too,  double  the  number  of  the  German. 
But  with  all  the  German  men-of-war  in  harbour,  they 
had  no  targets.  Where  were  they?  One  did  not 
ask  questions  that  could  not  be  answered.     Waiting, 


4o6    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

as  the  whole  British  fleet  was  waiting,  for  the  Ger- 
mans to  show  their  heads,  while  cruisers  were  abroad 
scouting  the  North  Sea. 

At  the  outset  of  the  war  the  German  fleet  might 
have  had  one  chance  in  ten  of  getting  a  turn  of  fortune 
of  its  favour  by  an  unexpected  stroke  of  strategy. 
This  was  the  danger  which  Admiral  Jellicoe  had  to 
guard  against.  For  in  one  sense,  the  Germans  had 
the  tactical  offensive  by  sea  as  well  as  by  land;  theirs 
the  outward  thrust  from  the  centre.  They  could 
choose  when  to  come  out  of  their  harbour;  when  to 
strike.  The  British  had  to  keep  watch  all  the  time 
and  be  ready  whenever  the  enemy  should  come. 

Thus,  the  British  Grand  Fleet  was  at  sea  in  the 
early  part  of  the  war,  cruising  here  and  there,  begging 
for  battle.  Then  it  was  that  they  learned  how  to 
avoid  the  submarines  and  the  mine-fields.  Submarines 
had  played  a  greater  part  than  expected,  because  Ger- 
many had  chosen  a  guerrilla  naval  warfare:  to  harass, 
to  wound,  to  wear  down.  Doubtless  she  hoped  to 
reduce  the  number  of  British  fighting  units  by  attri- 
tion. 

Weak  England  might  be  in  plants  for  making  arms 
for  an  army,  but  not  in  ship-building.  Here  was  her 
true  genius.  She  was  a  maritime  power;  Germany 
a  land-power.  Her  part  as  an  ally  of  France  and 
Russia  being  to  command  the  sea,  all  demands  of  the 
Admiralty  for  material  must  take  precedence  over  de- 
mands of  the  War  Oflice.  At  the  end  of  the  first 
year  she  had  increased  her  fighting  power  by  sea  to 
a  still  higher  ratio  of  preponderance  over  the  Ger- 
mans; in  another  year  she  would  increase  it  fur- 
ther. 

Admiral  von  Tirpitz  wanted  nothing  so  much  as  to 


ON  THE  FLEET  FLAGSHIP         407 

draw  the  British  fleet  under  the  guns  of  Heligoland 
or  into  a  mine-field  and  submarine  trap.  But  Sir  John 
Jellicoe  refused  the  bait.  When  he  had  completed 
his  precautions  and  his  organisation  to  meet  all  new 
conditions,  his  fleet  need  not  go  into  the  open.  His 
Dreadnoughts  could  rest  at  anchor  at  a  base  while 
his  scouts  kept  in  touch  with  all  that  was  passing  and 
his  auxiliaries  and  destroyers  fought  the  submarines. 
Without  a  British  Dreadnought  having  fired  a  shot 
at  a  German  Dreadnought,  nowhere  on  the  face  of 
the  seas  might  a  single  vessel  show  the  German  flag 
except  by  thrusting  It  above  the  water  for  a  few  min- 
utes. 

If  von  Tirpitz  sent  his  fleet  out  he,  too,  might  find 
himself  in  a  trap  of  mines  and  submarines.  He  was 
losing  submarines  and  England  was  building  more. 
His  naval  force  rather  than  Sir  John's  was  suffering 
from  attrition.  The  blockade  was  complete  from  Ice- 
land to  the  North  Sea.  While  the  world  knew  of  the 
work  of  the  armies,  the  care  that  this  task  required, 
the  hardships  endured,  the  enormous  expenditure  of 
energy,  were  all  hidden  behind  that  veil  of  secrecy 
which  obviously  must  be  more  closely  drawn  over 
naval  than  over  army  operations. 

From  this  flagship  the  campaign  was  directed.  One 
would  think  that  many  ofiices  and  many  clerks  would 
be  required.  But  the  oflfices  and  the  clerks  were  at 
the  Admiralty.  Here  was  the  execution.  In  a  room 
perhaps  four  feet  by  six  was  the  wireless  focus  which 
received  all  the  reports  and  sent  all  the  orders,  with 
trim  bluejackets  at  the  keys.  "  Go !  "  and  "  Come !  " 
the  messages  were  saying;  they  wasted  no  words. 
Officers  of  the  staff  did  their  work  in  narrow  space, 
yet  seemed  to  have  plenty  of  room.     Red  tape  is  in- 


4o8    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

flammable.  There  is  no  more  place  for  it  on  board  a 
flagship  prepared  for  action  than  for  unnecessary 
woodwork. 

At  every  turn  the  compression  and  the  concentra- 
tion of  power  were  like  the  guns  and  the  decks  cleared 
for  action  in  their  significant  directness  of  purpose. 
The  system  was  planetary  in  its  impressive  simplicity, 
the  more  striking  as  nothing  that  man  has  ever  made 
is  more  complicated  or  includes  more  kinds  of  ma- 
chinery than  a  battleship.  One  battleship  was  one 
unit,  one  chessman  on  the  naval  board. 

Not  all  famous  leaders  are  likeable,  as  every  world 
traveller  knows.  They  all  have  the  magnetism  of 
force,  which  is  quite  another  thing  from  the  mag- 
netism of  charm.  What  the  public  demands  is  that 
they  shall  win  victories,  whether  personally  likeable 
or  not.  But  if  they  are  likeable  and  simple  and  hu- 
man in  the  bargain  and  a  sailor  besides  —  well,  we 
know  what  that  means. 

Perhaps  Sir  John  Jellicoe  Is  not  a  great  man.  It  is 
not  for  a  civilian  even  to  presume  to  judge.  We  have 
the  word  of  those  who  ought  to  know,  however,  that 
he  is.  I  hope  that  he  Is,  because  I  like  to  think  that 
great  commanders  need  not  necessarily  appear  formi- 
dable. Nelson  refused  to  be  cast  for  the  heavy  part, 
and  so  did  Farragut.  It  may  be  a  sailor  characteris- 
tic. I  predict  that  after  this  war  Is  over,  whatever 
honours  or  titles  they  may  bestow  on  him,  the  Eng- 
lish are  going  to  like  Sir  John  Jellicoe  not  alone  for 
his  service  to  the  nation,  but  for  himself. 

Admiral  Jellicoe  is  one  with  Captain  Jellicoe,  whose 
cheeriness  even  when  wounded  kept  up  the  spirits  of 
the  others  on  the  Relief  Expedition  of  Boxer  days. 
"  He  could  do  it,  too !  "  one  thought,  having  in  mind 


ON  THE  FLEET  FLAGSHIP         409 

Sir  David  Beatty's  leap  to  the  deck  of  a  destroyer. 
Spare,  of  medium  height,  ruddy,  and  fifty-seven.  So 
much  for  the  health  qualification  which  the  Admiralty 
lords  dwelt  upon  as  important.  After  he  had  been  at 
sea  for  a  year  he  seemed  a  human  machine,  much  of 
the  type  of  that  destroyer  as  a  steel  machine  —  a 
thirty-knot  human  machine,  capable  of  three  hundred 
or  five  hundred  revolutions,  engines  running  smoothly, 
with  no  waste  energy,  slipping  over  the  waves  and  cut- 
ting through  them;  a  quick  man,  quick  of  movement, 
quick  of  comprehension  and  observation,  of  speech 
and  of  thought,  with  a  delightful  self-possession  — 
for  there  are  many  kinds  —  which  is  instantly  respon- 
sive with  decision. 

A  telescope  under  his  arm,  too,  as  he  received  his 
guests.  One  liked  that.  He  keeps  watch  over  the 
fleet  himself  when  he  is  on  the  quarter-deck.  One 
had  a  feeling  that  nothing  could  happen  in  all  his 
range  of  vision,  stretching  down  the  "  avenues  of 
Dreadnoughts  "  to  the  light-cruiser  squadron,  and  es- 
cape his  attention.  It  hardly  seems  possible  that  he 
was  ever  bored.  Everything  around  him  interests 
him.  Energy  he  has,  electric  energy  in  this  electric 
age,  this  man  chosen  to  command  the  greatest  war 
product  of  modern  energy. 

Fastened  to  the  superstructure  near  the  ladder  to 
his  quarters  was  a  new  broom  which  South  Africa 
had  sent  him.  He  was  highly  pleased  with  that  pres- 
ent; only  the  broom  was  von  Tromp's  emblem,  while 
Blake's  had  been  the  whip.  Possibly  the  South  Afri- 
can Dutchmen,  now  fighting  on  England's  side,  knew 
that  he  already  had  the  whip  and  they  wanted  him  to 
have  the  Dutch  broom,  too. 

He  had  been  using  both,  and  many  other  devices 


410    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

in  his  campaign  against  von  Tirpitz'  "  unter  see 
boots,"  which  was  illustrated  by  one  of  the  maps  hung 
in  his  cabin.  Quite  different  this  from  maps  in  a  gen- 
eral's headquarters,  with  the  front  trenches  and  sup- 
port and  reserve  trenches  and  gun-positions  marked 
in  vari-coloured  pencillings.  Instantly  a  submarine 
was  sighted  anywhere,  Sir  John  had  word  of  it,  and 
another  dot  went  down  on  the  spot  where  it  had  been 
seen.  In  places  the  sea  looked  like  a  pepper-box 
cover.  Dots  were  plentiful  outside  the  harbour  where 
we  were ;  but  well  outside,  like  flies  around  sugar  which 
they  could  not  reach. 

Seeing  Sir  John  among  his  admirals  and  guests  one 
had  a  glimpse  of  the  life  of  a  sort  of  mysterious,  busy 
brotherhood.  I  vras  still  searching  for  an  admiral 
with  white  hair.  If  there  were  none  among  these 
seniors,  then  all  must  be  on  shore.  Spirit,  I  think, 
that  Is  the  word;  the  spirit  of  youth,  of  corps,  of  serv- 
ice, of  the  sea,  of  a  ready,  buoyant  definlteness  —  yes, 
spirit  was  the  word  to  characterise  them.  Sir  John 
moved  from  one  to  another  In  his  quick  way,  asking  a 
question,  listening,  giving  a  direction,  his  face  smiling 
and  expressive  with  a  sort  of  infectious  confidence. 

"  He  is  the  manl  "  said  an  admiral.  I  mean,  sev- 
eral admirals  and  captains  said  so.  They  seemed  to 
like  to  say  it.  Whenever  he  approached  one  noted 
an  eagerness,  a  tightening  of  nerves.  Natural  leader- 
ship expresses  itself  in  many  ways;  Sir  John  gave  it 
a  sailor's  attractiveness.  But  I  learned  that  there  was 
steel  under  his  happy  smile;  and  they  liked  him  for 
that,  too.  Watch  out  when  he  is  not  smiling,  and 
sometimes  when  he  is  smiling,  they  say. 

For  failure  Is  never  excused  in  that  fleet,  as  more 
than  one  commander  knows.     It  is  a  luxury  of  consid- 


ON  THE  FLEET  FLAGSHIP         411 

eration  which  the  British  nation  cannot  afford  by  sea 
in  time  of  war.  The  scene  which  one  witnessed  in 
the  cabin  of  the  Dreadnought  flagship  could  not  have 
been  unlike  that  of  Nelson  and  his  young  captains  on 
the  Victory,  in  the  animation  of  youth  governed  with 
only  one  thought  under  the  one  rule  that  you  must 
make  good. 

Splendid  as  the  sight  of  the  power  which  Sir  John 
directed  from  his  quarter-deck  while  the  ships  lay  still 
in  their  plotted  moorings,  it  paled  beside  that  when 
the  anchor  chains  began  to  rumble  and,  column  by 
column,  they  took  on  life  slowly  and  majestically  gain- 
ing speed  one  after  another  turned  toward  the  har- 
bour's entrance. 


XXXI 

SIMPLY    HARD   WORK 

England's  navy,  the  culmination  of  her  brains  and  application  —  A 
perpetual  war-footing  —  Pride  of  craft  —  The  personnel  behind 
the  guns  —  Physique,  health,  conduct  —  Fate's  favourites  in  the 
tienches!  —  Gun  practice  —  A  miniature  German  Navy  —  The 
acme  of  efficiency  —  The  British  nation  lives  or  dies  with  its 
navy  —  The  prototype  of  our  own  Atlantic  fleet. 

Besides  the  simple  word  spirit,  there  is  the  simple 
word  work.  Take  the  two  together,  mixing  with 
them  the  proper  quantity  of  intelligence,  and  you  have 
something  finer  than  Dreadnoughts;  for  it  builds 
Dreadnoughts,  or  tunnels  mountains,  or  wins  vic- 
tories. 

In  no  organisation  would  it  be  so  easy  as  in  the 
navy  to  become  slack.  If  the  public  sees  a  naval  re- 
view it  knows  that  its  ships  can  steam  and  keep  their 
formations;  if  it  goes  on  board  it  knows  that  the  ships 
are  clean  —  at  least,  the  limited  part  of  them  which 
it  sees.     And  it  knows  that  there  are  turrets  and  guns. 

But  how  does  it  know  that  the  armour  of  the  tur- 
rets is  good,  or  that  the  guns  will  fire  accurately?  In- 
deed, all  that  it  sees  is  the  shell.  The  rest  must  be 
taken  on  trust.  A  navy  may  look  all  right  and  be 
quite  bad.  The  nation  gives  a  certain  amount  of 
money  to  build  ships  which  are  taken  in  charge  by 
officers  and  men  who,  shut  off  from  public  observa- 
tion, may  do  about  as  they  please. 

The  result  rests  with  their  industry  and  responsi- 
bility.    If  they  are  true  to  the  character  of  the  nation 

412 


SIMPLY  HARD  WORK  413 

by  and  large  that  is  all  the  nation  may  expect;  If  they 
are  better,  then  the  nation  has  reason  to  be  grateful, 
Englishmen  take  more  interest  in  their  navy  than 
Americans  in  theirs.  They  give  it  the  best  that  is  in 
them  and  they  expect  the  best  from  it  in  return. 
Every  youngster  who  hopes  to  be  an  officer  knows 
that  the  navy  is  no  place  for  idling;  every  man  who 
enlists  knows  that  he  is  in  for  no  junket  on  a  pleasure 
yacht.  The  British  navy,  I  judged,  had  a  relatively 
large  percentage  of  the  brains  and  application  of 
Britain. 

"  It  is  not  so  different  from  what  it  was  for  ten 
years  before  the  war,"  said  one  of  the  officers.  "  We 
did  all  the  work  we  could  stand  then;  and  whether 
cruising  or  lying  in  harbour,  life  is  almost  normal  for 
us  to-day." 

The  British  fleet  was  always  on  a  war  footing.  It 
must  be.  Lack  of  naval  preparation  is  more  danger- 
ous than  lack  of  land  preparation.  It  is  fatal.  I 
know  of  officers  who  had  had  only  a  week's  leave  in 
a  year  in  time  of  peace;  their  pay  is  less  than  our 
officers'.     Patriotism  kept  them  up  to  the  mark. 

And  another  thing:  Once  a  sailor,  always  a  sailor, 
Is  an  old  saying;  but  it  has  a  new  apphcation  in  mod- 
ern navies.  They  become  fascinated  with  the  very 
drudgery  of  ship's  existence.  They  like  their  world, 
which  is  their  house  and  their  shop.  It  has  the  attrac- 
tion of  a  world  of  priestcraft,  with  them  alone  under- 
standing the  ritual.  Their  drill  at  the  guns  becomes 
the  preparation  for  the  great  sport  of  target  practice, 
which  beats  any  big  game  shooting  when  guns  com- 
pete with  guns,  with  battle  practice  greater  sport  than 
target  practice.  Bringing  a  ship  into  harbour  well, 
holding  her  to  her  place  in  the  formation,  roaming 


414    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

over  the  seas  In  a  destroyer  —  all  means  eternal  ef- 
fort at  the  mastery  of  material  with  the  results  posi- 
tively demonstrated. 

On  one  of  the  Dreadnoughts  I  saw  a  gun's  crew 
drilling  with  a  dummy  six-inch,  weight  one  hundred 
pounds. 

"  Isn't  that  boy  pretty  young  to  handle  that  big 
shell?  "  an  admiral  asked  a  junior  officer. 

"  He  doesn't  think  so,"  the  officer  replied.  "  We 
haven't  any  one  who  could  handle  It  better.  It  would 
break  his  heart  If  we  changed  his  position." 

Not  one  of  fifty  German  prisoners  whom  I  had 
seen  filing  by  over  In  France  was  as  sturdy  as  this 
youngster.  In  the  ranks  of  an  infantry  company  of 
any  army  he  would  have  been  above  the  average  of 
physique;  but  among  the  rest  of  the  gun's  crew  he 
did  appear  slight.  Need  more  be  said  about  the  phys- 
ical standard  of  the  crews  of  the  fighting  ships  of  the 
Grand  Fleet? 

One  had  an  eye  to  more  than  guns  and  machinery 
and  to  more  than  the  character  of  the  officers.  He 
wanted  to  become  better  acquainted  with  the  personnel 
of  the  men  behind  the  guns.  They  formed  patches 
of  blue  on  the  decks,  as  one  looked  around  the  fleet, 
against  the  background  of  the  dull,  painted  bulwarks 
of  steel  —  the  human  element  whose  skill  gave  the 
ships  life  —  deep-chested,  vigorous  men  in  their  prime, 
who  had  the  air  of  men  grounded  in  their  work  by 
long  experience.  One  noted  when  an  order  was  given 
out  that  It  was  obeyed  quickly  by  one  who  knew  what 
he  had  to  do  because  he  had  done  it  thousands  of  times. 

There  are  all  kinds  of  bluejackets,  as  there  are  all 
kinds  of  other  men.  Before  the  war  some  took  more 
than  was  good  for  them  when  on  shore;  some  took 


SIMPLY  HARD  WORK  415 

nothing  stronger  than  tea;  some  enjoyed  the  sailor's 
privilege  of  growling;  some  had  to  be  kept  up  to  the 
mark  sharply;  an  occasional  one  might  get  rebellious 
against  the  merciless  repetition  of  drills. 

The  war  imparted  eagerness  to  all,  the  officers  said. 
Infractions  of  discipline  ceased.  Days  pass  without 
any  one  of  the  crew  of  a  Dreadnought  having  to  be 
called  up  in  default,  I  am  told.  And  their  health? 
At  first  thought,  one  would  say  that  life  in  the  steel 
caves  of  a  Dreadnought  would  mean  pasty  complexions 
and  flabby  muscles.  For  a  year  the  crews  had  been 
the  prisoners  of  that  readiness  which  must  not  lose  a 
minute  In  putting  to  sea  If  von  Tirpitz  should  ever 
try  the  desperate  gamble  of  battle. 

After  a  turn  in  the  trenches  the  soldiers  can  at  least 
stretch  their  legs  in  billets.  A  certain  number  of  a 
ship's  company  now  and  then  get  a  tramp  on  shore; 
not  real  leave,  but  a  personally  conducted  outing  not 
far  from  the  boats  which  will  hurry  them  back  to  their 
stations  on  signal.  However,  all  that  one  needs  to 
keep  well  Is  fresh  air  and  exercise.  The  blowers 
carry  fresh  air  to  every  part  of  the  ship;  the  breezes 
which  sweep  the  deck  from  the  North  Sea  are  fresh 
enough  in  summer  and  a  little  too  fresh  in  winter. 
There  Is  exercise  In  the  regular  drills,  supplemented 
by  setting-up  exercises.  The  food  is  good  and  no 
man  drinks  or  eats  what  he  ought  not  to,  as  he  may 
on  shore.  So  there  Is  the  fact  and  the  reason  for  the 
fact:  the  health  of  the  men,  as  well  as  their  conduct, 
had  never  been  so  good. 

"  Perhaps  we  are  not  quite  so  clean  as  we  were 
before  the  war,"  said  an  officer.  "  We  wash  decks 
only  twice  a  week  instead  of  every  day.  This  means 
that  quarters  are  not  so  moist  and  the  men  have  more 


41 6    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

freedom  of  movement.  We  want  them  to  have  as 
much  freedom  as  possible." 

Waiting,  waiting,  in  such  confinement  for  thirteen 
months ;  waiting  for  battle  !  Think  of  the  strain  of  it  I 
The  British  temperament  is  well  fitted  to  undergo  such 
a  test,  and  particularly  well  fitted  are  these  sturdy 
seamen  of  mature  years.  An  enemy  may  imagine 
them  wearing  down  their  efficiency  on  the  leash. 
They  want  a  fight ;  naturally,  they  want  nothing  quite 
so  much.  But  they  have  the  seaman's  philosophy. 
Old  von  Tirpitz  may  come  out  and  he  may  not.  It 
is  for  him  to  do  the  worrying.  They  sit  tight.  The 
men's  ardour  Is  not  imposed  upon.  Care  is  taken  that 
they  should  not  be  worked  stale;  for  the  marksman 
who  puts  a  dozen  shots  through  the  bull's-eye  had  bet- 
ter not  keep  on  firing,  lest  he  begin  rimming  it  and 
get  into  bad  habits. 

Where  an  army  officer  has  a  change  when  he  leaves 
the  trench  for  his  billet,  there  is  none  for  the  naval 
officer,  who,  unlike  the  army  officer,  Is  Spartan-bred 
to  confinement.  The  army  pays  Its  daily  toll  of 
casualties;  it  lies  cramped  In  dugouts,  not  knowing 
what  minute  extinction  may  come.  The  Grand  Fleet 
has  Its  usual  comforts;  It  is  safe  from  submarines  in 
a  quiet  harbour.  Many  naval  officers  spoke  of  this 
contrast  with  deep  feeling,  as  if  fate  were  playing  fa- 
vourites, though  I  have  never  heard  an  army  officer 
mention  It. 

The  army  can  give  each  day  fresh  proof  of  its  cour- 
age In  face  of  the  enemy.  Courage !  It  takes  on  a 
new  meaning  with  the  Grand  Fleet.  The  individual 
element  of  gallantry  merges  into  gallantry  of  the 
whole.  You  have  the  very  communism  of  courage. 
The  thought  Is  to  keep  a  cool  head  and  do  your  part 


SIMPLY  HARD  WORK  417 

as  a  cog  in  the  vast  machine.  Courage  Is  as  much 
taken  for  granted  as  the  breath  of  life.  Thus,  Cra- 
dock's  men,  and  von  Spec's  men,  too,  fought  till  they 
went  down.  It  was  according  to  the  programme  laid 
out  for  each  turret  and  each  gun  in  a  turret. 

Smith,  of  the  army,  leads  a  bomb-throwing  party 
from  traverse  to  traverse;  Smith,  of  the  navy,  turns 
one  lever  at  the  right  second.  Army  gunners  are  im- 
proving their  practice  day  by  day  against  the  enemy; 
all  the  improving  by  navy  gunners  must  be  done  before 
the  battle.  No  sieges  in  trenches;  no  attacks  and 
counter-attacks :  a  decision  within  a  few  hours  —  per- 
haps within  an  hour. 

This  partially  explains  the  love  of  the  navy  for  its 
work;  its  cheerful  repetition  of  the  drills  which  seem 
such  a  wearisome  business  to  the  civilian.  The  men 
know  the  reason  of  their  drudgery.  It  is  an  all-con- 
vincing bull's-eye  reason.  Ping-ping!  One  heard  the 
familiar  sound  of  subcalibre  practice,  which  seems  as 
out  of  proportion  In  a  fifteen-Inch  gun  as  a  mouse 
squeak  from  an  elephant  whom  you  expect  to  trumpet. 
As  the  result  appears  in  subcalibre  practice,  so  it  is 
practically  bound  to  appear  in  target  practice;  as  it 
appears  in  target  practice,  so  it  is  bound  to  appear  in 
battle  practice. 

It  was  on  the  flagship  that  I  saw  a  device  which  Sir 
John  referred  to  as  the  next  best  thing  to  having  the 
Germans  come  out.  He  took  as  much  delight  In  It 
as  the  gun-pointers,  who  were  firing  at  German 
Dreadnoughts  of  the  first  line,  as  large  as  your  thumb, 
which  were  in  front  of  a  sort  of  liooued  arrangement 
with  the  guns  of  a  British  Dreadnought  inside  —  the 
rest  I  censor  myself  before  the  regular  censor  sees  it. 
When  we  heard  a  report  like  that  of  a  small  target 


41 8     MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

rifle  inside  the  arrangement  a  small  red  or  a  small 
white  splash  rose  from  the  metallic  platter  of  a  sea. 
Thus  the  whole  German  navy  has  been  pounded  to 
pieces  again  and  again.  It  is  a  great  game.  The 
gun-pointers  never  tire  of  it  and  they  think  they  know 
the  reason  as  well  as  anybody  why  von  Tirpitz  keeps 
his  Dreadnoughts  at  home. 

But  elsewhere  I  saw  some  real  firing;  for  ships  must 
have  their  regular  target  practice,  war  or  no  war. 
If  those  cruisers  steaming  across  the  range  had  been 
sending  six-  or  eight-inch  shrapnel,  we  should  have 
preferred  not  to  be  so  near  that  towed  square  of 
canvas.  Flashes  from  turrets  indistinguishable  at  a 
distance  from  the  neutral-toned  bodies  of  the  vessels 
and  the  shells  struck,  making  great  splashes  just  be- 
yond the  target,  which  was  where  they  ought  to  go. 

A  familiar  scene,  but  with  a  new  meaning  when 
the  time  is  one  of  war.  So  far  as  my  observation  is 
worth  anything,  it  was  very  good  shooting,  indeed. 
One  broadside  would  have  put  a  destroyer  out  of 
business  as  easily  as  a  "  Jack  Johnson  "  does  for  a 
dugout;  and  it  would  have  made  a  cruiser  of  the  same 
class  as  the  one  firing  pretty  groggy  —  this  not  from 
any  experience  of  being  on  a  light  cruiser  or  any  desire 
to  be  on  one  when  it  receives  such  a  salute.  But  it 
seems  to  be  waiting  for  the  Germans  any  time  that 
they  want  it. 

Oh,  that  towed  square  of  canvas !  It  is  the  symbol 
of  the  object  of  all  building  of  guns,  armour,  and  ships, 
all  the  nursing  in  dry  dock,  all  the  admiral's  plans,  all 
the  parliamentary  appropriations,  all  the  striving  on 
board  ship  in  man's  competition  with  man,  crew  with 
crew,  gun  with  gun,  and  ship  with  ship.  One  had  in 
mind  some  vast  factory  plant  where  every  unit  was 


SIMPLY  HARD  WORK  419 

efficiently  organised;  but  that  comparison  would  not 
do.  None  will.  The  Grand  Fleet  is  the  Grand 
Fleet. 

Ability  gets  its  reward  as  in  the  competition  of  civil 
life.  There  is  no  linear  promotion  indulgent  to  medi- 
ocrity and  inferiority  which  are  satisfied  to  keep  step 
and  harassing  to  those  whom  nature  and  application 
meant  to  lead.  Armchairs  and  retirement  for  those 
whose  inclinations  run  that  way;  the  captain's  bridge 
for  those  who  are  fit  to  command.  Officers'  records 
are  the  criterion  when  superiors  come  to  making  pro- 
motions. But  does  not  outside  influence  play  a  part? 
you  ask.  If  professional  conscience  is  not  enough  to 
prevent  this,  another  thing  appears  to  be:  that  the 
British  nation  lives  or  dies  with  its  navy.  Besides, 
the  British  public  has  said  to  all  and  sundry  outsiders: 
"Hands  off  the  navy!  "  All  honour  to  the  British 
public,  much  criticised  and  often  most  displeased  with 
its  servants  and  itself,  for  keeping  its  eye  on  that  can- 
vas square  of  cloth! 

The  language  on  board  was  the  same  as  on  our 
ships;  the  technical  phraseology  practically  the  same; 
we  had  inherited  British  traditions.  But  a  man  from 
Kansas  and  a  man  from  Dorset  live  far  apart.  If 
they  have  a  good  deal  in  common  they  rarely  meet  to 
learn  that  they  have.  But  seamen  do  meet  and  share 
a  fraternity  which  is  more  than  that  of  the  sea.  Close 
one's  eyes  to  the  difference  in  uniform,  discount  the 
difference  in  accent,  and  one  imagined  that  he  might 
be  with  our  North  Atlantic  fleet. 

The  same  sort  of  shop  talk  a.nd  banter  in  the  ward- 
room, which  trims  and  polishes  human  edges;  the 
same  fellowship  of  a  world  apart.  Securely  ready 
the   British  fleet  waits.     Enough  drill  and  not  too 


420    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

much;  occasional  visits  between  ships;  books  and  news- 
papers and  a  light-hearted  relaxation  of  scattered  con- 
versation In  the  mess.  One  wardroom  had  a  thirty- 
five-second  record  for  getting  past  all  the  pitfalls  in 
the  popular  "  Silver  Bullet "  game,  if  I  remember  cor- 
rectly. 


XXXII 

HUNTING   THE   SUBMARINE 

Seaplanes  afloat  and  on  high  —  Diabolical  bombs  —  Sighting  a  sub- 
marine—  The  chase  —  Submarine  defences  —  Torpedo  boats  at 
home  —  The  mine  sweepers  —  Patience  in  the  cold  of  the  North 
Sea. 

Seaplanes  cut  practice  circles  over  the  fleet  and  then 
flew  away  on  their  errands,  to  be  lost  in  the  sky  beyond 
the  harbour  entrance.  With  their  floats,  they  were 
like  ducks  when  they  came  to  rest  on  the  water,  sturdy 
and  a  little  clumsy  looking  compared  to  those  hawks 
the  army  planes,  soaring  to  higher  altitudes. 

The  hawk  had  a  broad,  level  field  for  its  roost;  the 
duck,  bobbing  with  the  waves  after  it  came  down,  had 
its  wings  folded  as  became  a  bird  at  rest  after  its 
engines  stopped  and  a  dead  thing,  it  was  lifted  on 
board  its  floating  home  with  a  crane,  as  cargo  is  swung 
into  the  hold. 

On  shipboard  there  must  be  shipshapeness;  and  that 
capacious,  one-time  popular  Atlantic  liner  had  under- 
gone changes  to  prepare  it  for  its  mothering  part,  with 
platforms  in  place  of  the  promenades  where  people 
had  lounged  during  the  voyage,  and  bombs  in  place  of 
deck  quoits  and  dining-saloons  turned  into  workshops. 
Of  course,  one  was  shown  the  different  sizes  and  types 
of  bombs.  Aviators  exhibit  them  with  the  pride  of  a 
collector  showing  his  porcelains.  Every  time  they 
seem  to  me  to  have  grown  larger  and  more  diabolical. 
Where  will  aerial  progress  end?     Will  the  next  war 

421 


42  2    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

be  fought  by  forces  that  dive  and  fly  Hke  fish  and 
birds? 

"  I'd  like  to  drop  that  hundred-pounder  onto  a  Zep- 
pelin!  "  said  one  of  the  aviators.  All  the  population 
of  London  would  like  to  see  him  do  it.  Also  Fritz, 
of  the  submarine,  does  not  like  to  see  the  shadow  of 
man's  wings  above  the  water. 

Seaplanes  and  destroyers  carry  the  imagination 
away  from  the  fleet  to  another  sphere  of  activity, 
which  I  had  not  the  fortune  to  see.  An  aviator  can 
see  Fritz  below  a  smooth  surface;  for  he  cannot  travel 
much  deeper  than  thirty  or  forty  feet.  He  leaves  a 
characteristic  ripple  and  tell-tale  bubbles  of  air  and 
streaks  of  oil.  When  the  planes  have  located  him 
they  can  tell  the  hunters  where  to  go.  Sometimes  it 
is  known  that  a  submarine  is  in  a  certain  region;  he  is 
lost  sight  of  and  seen  again;  a  squall  may  cover  his 
track  a  second  time,  and  the  hunters,  keeping  touch 
with  the  planes  by  signals,  course  here  and  there  on 
the  lookout  for  another  glimpse.  Perhaps  he  escapes 
altogether.  It  is  a  tireless  game  of  hide-and-seek,  like 
that  of  gunnery  at  the  front.  Naval  ingenuity  has 
invented  no  end  of  methods  and  no  end  of  experiments 
have  been  tried.  Strictest  kept  of  naval  secrets,  these. 
Fritz  is  not  to  be  told  what  to  avoid  and  what  not  to 
avoid. 

Very  thin  the  skin  of  a  submarine;  very  fragile  and 
complicated  its  machinery.  It  does  not  take  much  of 
a  shock  to  put  it  out  of  order  or  a  large  cargo  of  explo- 
sive to  dent  that  skin  beyond  repair.  It  being  In  the 
nature  of  submarines  to  sink,  how  does  the  hunter 
know  when  he  has  struck  a  mortal  blow?  If  oil  and 
bubbles  come  up  for  sometime  in  one  place,  or  if  they 
come  up  with  a  rush,  that  is  suggestive.     Then,  it  docs 


HUNTING  THE  SUBMARINE        423 

not  require  a  nautical  mind  to  realise  that  by  casting 
about  on  the  bottom  with  a  grapnel  you  will  learn  if 
an  object  with  the  bulk  and  size  of  a  submarine  is 
there.  Admirals  accept  no  guesswork  from  the  hunt- 
ers about  their  exploits;  they  must  bring  the  brush  to 
prove  the  kill. 

With  Admiral  Crawford  I  went  to  see  the  sub- 
marine defences  of  a  harbour.  It  reminded  one  of 
the  old  days  of  the  drawbridge  to  the  castle,  when  a 
friend  rode  freely  in  and  an  enemy  might  try  to  swim 
the  moat  and  scale  the  walls  if  he  pleased. 

"  Take  care !  There  is  a  tide  here !  "  the  coxswain 
was  warned,  lest  the  barge  get  into  some  of  the 
troubles  meant  for  Fritz.  "  A  cunning  fellow,  Fritz. 
We  must  give  him  no  openings." 

The  openings  appear  long  enough  to  permit  British 
craft,  whether  trawlers,  or  flotillas,  or  cruisers,  or  bat- 
tleships, to  go  and  come.  Lying  as  close  together  as 
fish  in  a  basket,  I  saw  at  one  place  a  number  of  torpedo 
boats  home  from  a  week  at  sea. 

"  Here  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow,"  said  an  officer. 
"  What  a  time  they  had  last  winter!  You  know  how 
cold  the  North  Sea  is  —  no,  you  cannot,  unless  you 
have  been  out  in  a  torpedo  boat  dancing  the  tango  in 
the  teeth  of  that  bitter  wind,  with  the  spray  whipping 
up  to  the  tops  of  the  smoke-stacks.  In  the  dead  of 
night  they  would  come  into  this  pitch-dark  harbour. 
How  they  found  their  way  is  past  me.  It's  a  trick  of 
those  young  fellows,  who  command." 

Stationary  they  seemed  now  as  the  quay  itself;  but 
let  a  signal  speak,  an  alarm  come,  and  they  would  soon 
be  as  alive  as  leaping  porpoises.  The  sport  is  to  those 
who  scout  and  hunt.  But,  again,  do  not  forget  those 
who  watch,  those  who  keep  the  blockade,  from  the 


424    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Channel  to  Iceland,  and  those  trawlers  who  plod  over 
plotted  sea-squares  with  the  regularity  of  mowing 
machines  cutting  a  harvest,  on  their  way  back  and  forth 
sweeping  up  mines.  They  were  fishermen  before  the 
war  and  are  fishermen  still.  Night  and  day  they  keep 
at  it.  They  come  into  the  harbours  stiff  with  cold, 
thaw  out,  and  return  to  hardships  which  would  make 
many  a  man  prefer  the  trenches.  Tributes  to  their 
patient  courage,  which  came  from  the  heart,  were 
heard  on  board  the  battleships. 

"  It  is  when  we  think  of  them,"  said  an  officer, 
"  that  we  are  most  eager  to  have  the  German  fleet 
come  out,  so  that  we  can  do  our  part." 


XXXIII 

THE   FLEET   PUTS   TO   SEA 

The  test  of  perfect  motion  —  Is  the  fleet  bottled  by  submarines?  — 
The  message  arrives  —  The  sea-march  of  dull-toned  unadorned 
power  —  Destroyers  in  the  van  —  The  majestic  procession  of 
battleships  —  The  secret  in  sheer  hard  work  —  The  sea-lion  on 
the  hunt  —  The  "old"  Dreadnought  —  The  exotic  Turk  —  An 
hour  and  still  passing  —  Irresistible  power  —  Visualizing  the 
whole  globe,  safe  behind  that  fleet  —  Back  in  London  —  The 
Zeppelin's  pitiable  target  —  Meaning  of  British  dominion  —  A 
German  comparison. 

There  is  another  test  besides  that  of  gun  drills  and 
target  practice  which  reflects  the  efficiency  of  indi- 
vidual ships,  and  the  larger  the  number  of  ships  the 
more  important  it  is.  For  the  business  of  a  fleet  is 
to  go  to  sea.  At  anchor  it  is  in  garrison  rather  than 
on  campaign,  an  assembly  of  floating  forts.  Navies 
one  has  seen  which  seemed  excellent  when  in  harbour, 
but  when  they  started  to  get  under  way  the  result  was 
hardly  reassuring.  Some  erring  sister  fouled  her 
anchor  chain;  another  had  engine  room  trouble; 
another  lagged  for  some  other  reason;  there  was 
fidgeting  on  the  bridges.  Then  one  asked.  What  if 
a  summons  to  battle  had  come? 

Our  own  officers  were  authority  enough  for  me  that 
the  British  had  no  superiors  in  any  of  the  tests.  But 
strange  reports  dodged  in  and  out  of  the  alleys  of 
pessimism  in  the  company  of  German  insistence  that 
the  Tiger  and  other  ships  which  one  saw  afloat  had 
been  sunk.  Was  the  fleet  really  held  prisoner  by  fear 
of  submarines?     If  it  could  go  and  come  freely  when 

42s 


426    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

it  chose,  the  harbour  was  the  place  for  it  while  It 
waited.  If  not,  then.  Indeed,  the  submarine  had  revo- 
lutionised naval  warfare.  Admiral  Jellicoe  might 
lose  some  of  his  battleships  before  he  could  ever  go 
into  action  against  von  Tirpitz. 

"  Oh,  to  hear  the  hoarse  rattle  of  the  anchor 
chains !  "  I  kept  thinking  while  I  was  with  the  fleet. 
"  Oh,  to  see  all  those  monsters  on  the  move!  " 

A  vain  wish  it  seemed,  but  it  came  true.  A  message 
from  the  Admiralty  arrived  while  we  were  on  the 
flagship.  Admiral  Jellicoe  called  his  flag  secretary, 
spoke  a  word  to  him,  which  was  passed  in  a  twinkling 
from  flagship  to  squadron  and  division  and  ship.  He 
made  it  as  simple  as  ordering  his  barge  alongside,  this 
sending  of  the  Grand  Fleet  to  sea. 

From  the  bridge  of  a  destroyer  beyond  the  harbour 
entrance  we  saw  it  go.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe 
the  spectacle,  which  convinced  me  that  language  is  the 
vehicle  for  making  small  things  seem  great  and  great 
things  seem  small.  If  you  wish  words  invite  splendid 
and  magnificent  and  overwhelming  and  all  the  reliable 
old  friends  to  come  forth  in  glad  apparel  from  the  dic- 
tionary. Personally,  I  was  inarticulate  at  sight  of  that 
sea  march  of  dull-toned,  unadorned  power. 

First  came  the  outriders  of  majesty,  the  destroyers; 
rfien  the  graceful  light  cruisers.  How  many  destroy- 
ers has  the  British  navy?  I  am  only  certain  that  it 
has  not  as  many  as  it  seems  to  have,  which  would  mean 
thousands.  Trying  to  count  them  is  like  trying  to 
count  the  bees  in  the  garden.  You  cannot  keep  your 
eye  on  the  individual  bees.  You  are  bound  to  count 
some  twice,  so  busy  are  their  manoeuvres. 

"  Don't  you  worry,  great  ladies !  "  one  imagined  the 
destroyers  were  saying  to  the  battleships.     "  We  will 


THE  FLEET  PUTS  TO  SEA         427 

clear  the  road.  We  will  keep  watch  against  snipers 
and  assassins." 

"  And  if  any  knocks  are  coming,  we  will  take  them 
for  you,  great  ladies !  "  said  the  cruisers.  "  If  one  of 
us  went  down,  the  loss  would  not  be  great.  Keep 
your  big  guns  safe  to  beat  other  battleships  into  scrap." 

For  you  may  be  sure  that  Fritz  was  on  the  watch  in 
the  open.  He  always  is,  like  the  highwayman  hiding 
behind  a  hedge  and  env}^ing  people  who  have  com- 
fortable beds.  Probably  from  a  distance  he  had  a 
peek  through  his  periscope  at  the  Grand  Fleet  before 
the  approach  of  the  policeman  destroyers  made  him 
duck  beneath  the  water;  and  probably  he  tried  to  count 
the  number  of  ships  and  identify  their  classes  in  order 
to  take  the  information  home  to  Kiel.  Besides,  he 
always  has  his  fingers  crossed.  He  hopes  that  some 
day  he  may  get  a  shot  at  something  more  warlike  than 
a  merchant  steamer  or  an  auxiliary;  only  that  prospect 
becomes  poorer  as  life  for  him  grows  harder.  Except 
a  miracle  happened,  the  steaming  fleet,  with  its  cordons 
of  destroyers,  is  as  safe  from  him  as  from  any  other 
kind  of  fish. 

The  harbour  which  is  the  fleet's  home  is  landlocked 
by  low  hills.  There  is  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  by  the 
smoke  from  the  ships  getting  under  way;  streaming, 
soaring  columns  of  smoke  on  the  move  rise  above  the 
skyline  from  the  funnels  of  the  battleships  before  they 
appear  In  sight  around  a  bend.  Indefinite  masses  as 
yet  they  are,  under  their  night-black  plumes.  Each 
ship  seems  too  immense  to  respond  to  any  will  except 
Its  own.  There  is  something  automatic  In  the  regu- 
larity with  which,  one  after  another,  they  take  the 
bend,  as  if  a  stop  watch  had  been  held  on  t«\Tnty 
thousand  tons  of  steel  for  a  second's  variation.     As 


428    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

they  approach  they  become  more  distinct  and,  showing 
less  smoke,  there  seems  less  effort.  Their  motive- 
power  seems  inherent,  perpetual. 

There  is  some  sea  running  outside  the  entrance, 
enough  to  make  a  destroyer  roll.  But  the  battleships 
disdain  any  notice  of  its  existence.  It  is  no  more  to 
them  than  a  ripple  of  dust  to  a  motor  truck.  They 
plough  through  it. 

Though  you  were  within  twenty  yards  of  them  you 
would  feel  quite  safe.  An  express  train  was  in  no 
more  danger  of  jumping  the  track.  Mast  in  line  with 
mast,  they  held  the  course  with  a  majestic  steadiness. 
Now  the  leading  ship  makes  a  turn  of  a  few  points. 
At  the  same  spot,  as  if  it  were  marked  by  the  grooves 
of  tires  in  a  road,  the  others  make  it.  Any  variation 
of  speed  between  them  would  have  been  instantly  no- 
ticeable, as  one  forged  ahead  or  lagged;  but  the  dis- 
tance between  bows  and  sterns  did  not  change.  A  line 
of  one  length  would  do  for  each  interval  so  far  as  one 
could  discern.  It  was  difficult  to  think  that  they  were 
not  attached  to  some  taut  moving  cable  under  water. 
How  could  such  apparently  unwieldy  monsters,  in  such 
a  slippery  element  as  the  sea,  be  made  to  obey  their 
masters  with  such  fine  precision? 

The  answer  again  is  sheer  hard  work!  Drills  as 
arduous  in  the  engine  room  as  at  the  guns ;  machinery 
kept  in  tune ;  traditions  in  manoeuvring  in  all  weathers, 
which  are  kept  up  with  tireless  practice. 

Though  all  seemed  perfection  to  the  lay  eye,  let  it 
be  repeated  that  this  was  not  so  to  the  eyes  of  admirals. 
It  never  can  be.  Perfection  is  the  thing  striven  for. 
Officers  dwell  on  faults ;  all  are  critics.  Thus  you  have 
the  healthiest  kind  of  spirit,  which  means  that  there 
will  be  no  cessation  in  the  striving. 


THE  FLEET  PUTS  TO  SEA         429 

"Look  at  that!  "  exclaimed  an  officer  on  the  de- 
stroyer. "  They  better  try  another  painting  on  her 
and  see  if  they  can't  do  better." 

Ever  changing  that  northern  light.  For  an  instant 
the  sun's  rays,  strained  by  a  patch  of  peculiar  cloud, 
playing  on  a  Dreadnought's  side  made  her  colour 
appear  molten,  exaggerating  her  size  till  she  seemed  as 
colossal  to  the  eye  as  to  the  thought. 

"  But  look,  now!  "  said  another  officer.  She  was 
out  of  the  patch  and  seemed  miles  farther  away  to  the 
vision,  a  dim  shape  In  the  sea-haze. 

"  You  can't  have  it  right  for  every  atmospheric 
mood  of  the  North  Sea,  I  suppose !  "  muttered  the 
critic.  Still,  it  hurt  his  professional  pride  that  a  battle- 
ship should  show  up  as  such  a  glaring  target  even  for 
a  moment. 

The  power  of  the  fleet  was  more  patent  in  move- 
ment than  at  rest;  for  the  sea-lion  was  out  of  his  lair 
on  the  hunt.  Fluttering  with  flags  at  a  review  at  Spit- 
head  the  battleships  seemed  out  of  their  element; 
giants  trying  for  a  fairy's  part.  Display  is  not  for 
them.  It  111  becomes  them,  as  a  pink  ribbon  on  a  bull- 
dog. Irresistibly  ploughing  their  way  they  presented 
a  picture  of  resolute  utility  —  guns  and  turrets  and 
speed.  No  spot  of  bright  colour  was  visible  on  board. 
The  crew  was  at  the  guns,  I  took  it.  Turn  the  turrets, 
give  the  range,  lay  the  sights  on  the  enemy's  ships,  and 
the  battle  was  on. 

"  There  Is  the  old  Dreadnought,"  said  an  officer. 

The  old  Dreadnought  —  all  of  ten  years  of  age,  the 
senile  old  thing !  What  a  mystery  she  was  when  she 
was  building!  The  mystery  accentuated  her  celebrity 
—  and  almost  forgotten  now,  while  the  Queen  Eliza- 
beth and  the  JVarspite  and  others  of  their  class  with 


430    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

their  fifteen-inch  guns  would  be  in  the  public  eye  as  the 
latest  type  till  a  new  type  came.  A  parade  of  naval 
types  was  passing.  One  seemed  to  shade  into  the 
other  in  harmonious  effect. 

But  here  was  an  outsider,  whom  one  noted  instantly 
as  he  studied  those  rugged  silhouettes  of  steel  and 
counted  guns.  She  had  been  a  Turk.  As  the  Turks 
were  going  to  have  only  one  battleship,  they  were  not 
bothered  about  squadron  homogeneity.  They  piled 
turret  on  turret,  twelve  twelve-inch  guns  in  exotic 
array.  She  was  finished  and  the  Turks  were  already 
on  board  to  take  her  home  when  the  war  began.  But 
British  law  requires  that  any  foreign  man-of-war 
building  in  English  shipyards  may  be  taken  over  for 
her  cost  in  case  of  war.  So  England  kept  the  ship, 
which  the  Turks,  I  understand,  thought  was  hardly  a 
sporting  thing  to  do. 

One  division,  two  divisions,  four  ships,  eight  Dread- 
noughts —  even  a  squadron  coming  out  of  a  harbour 
numbs  the  faculties  with  a  sense  of  its  might.  Sixteen 
—  twenty  —  twenty-four  —  it  was  the  unending  num- 
bers of  this  procession  of  sea-power  which  was  most 
Impressive.  An  hour  passed  and  all  were  not  by. 
One  sat  down  for  a  few  minutes  behind  the  wind  screen 
of  the  destroyer's  bridge,  only  to  look  back  and  see 
more  Dreadnoughts  going  by.  One  had  not  realised 
that  there  were  so  many  in  the  harbour.  He  had  a 
suspicion  that  Admiral  Jellicoe  was  a  conjuror  who 
could  take  Dreadnoughts  out  of  a  hat. 

The  first  was  lost  in  the  gathering  darkness  far  out 
In  the  North  Sea,  and  still  the  cloud  of  smoke  over  the 
anchorage  was  as  thick  as  ever;  still  the  black  plumes 
kept  appearing  around  the  bend.     The  King  Edward 


THE  FLEET  PUTS  TO  SEA         431 

VII  class  with  their  four  twelve-inch  guns  and  other 
ancients  of  the  pre-Dreadnought  era,  which  are  still 
powerful  antagonists,  were  yet  to  come.  One's  eyes 
ached.  Those  who  saw  a  German  corps  march 
through  Brussels  said  that  it  seemed  irresistible. 
What  if.  they  had  seen  the  whole  German  army? 
Here  was  the  counterpart  of  the  whole  German  army 
In  sea-power  and  in  land-power,  too. 

The  destroyer  commander  looked  at  his  watch. 

"  Time !  "  he  said.     "  I'll  put  you  on  shore." 

He  must  take  his  place  in  the  fleet  at  a  given  mo- 
ment. A  word  to  the  engine  room  and  the  next  thing 
we  knew  we  were  off  at  thirty  knots  an  hour,  cutting 
straight  across  the  bows  of  a  Dreadnought  steaming  at 
twenty  knots  towering  over  us  threateningly,  with  a 
bone  in  her  teeth. 

One's  imagination  sped  across  seas  where  he  had 
cruised  into  harbours  that  he  knew  and  across  conti- 
nents that  he  knew.  He  was  trying  to  visualise  the 
whole  globe  —  all  of  it  except  the  Baltic  seas  and  a 
thumbmark  In  the  centre  of  Europe.  Hong  Kong, 
Melbourne,  Sydney,  Halifax,  Cape  Town,  Bombay  — 
yes,  and  Rio  and  Valparaiso,  Shanghai,  San  Francisco, 
New  York,  Boston,  these  and  the  lands  back  of  them 
where  countless  millions  dwell  were  all  safe  behind  the 
barrier  of  that  fleet. 

Then  back  through  the  land  where  Shakespeare 
wrote  to  London,  with  its  glare  of  recruiting  posters 
and  the  throbbing  of  that  individual  freedom  which  is 
on  trial  in  battle  with  the  Prussian  system  —  and  as 
one  is  going  to  bed  the  sound  of  guns  In  the  heart  of 
the  city!  From  the  window  one  looked  upward  to 
see,  under  a  searchlight's  play,  the  silken  sheen  of  a 


432    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

cigar-shaped  sort  of  aerial  phantom  which  was  drop- 
ping bombs  on  women  and  children,  while  never  a  shot 
was  fired  at  those  sturdy  men  behind  armour. 

When  you  have  travelled  far;  when  you  think  of 
Botha  and  his  Boers  fighting  for  England;  when  you 
have  found  justice  and  fair  play  and  open  markets 
under  the  British  flag;  when  you  compare  the  vocifera- 
tions of  von  TIrpitz  glorying  in  the  torpedoing  of  a 
Lusitania  with  the  quiet  manner  of  Sir  John  Jelllcoe, 
you  need  only  a  little  spark  of  conscience  to  prefer  the 
way  that  the  British  have  used  their  sea-power  to  the 
way  that  the  men  who  send  out  Zeppelins  to  war  on 
women  and  children  would  use  that  power  if  they  had 
it. 


XXXIV 

MANY   PICTURES 

The  aviation  grounds  —  Arabian  Nights'  heroes  and  their  magic 
carpets  —  Corps'  spirit  —  A  chivalric  custom  —  Billeting  in 
French  houses  —  Well-disciplined  guests  —  Teaching  the  art  of 
war  —  Picturesque  tribesmen  from  India  —  Their  loyalty  — 
British   justice  —  Matins   and   Angelus  —  Farming  without   men 

—  The  peasants  win  —  Greeting  the  French  troops  —  Sir  John 
French  on  duty — "Inspecting  and  disinfecting" — The  new 
"shilling  a  day"  men  —  Albert  Edward,  the  "willing  prince" 

—  Care  of  the  wounded. 

A  SINGLE  Incident,  an  impression  photographic  in  its 
swiftness,  a  chance  remark,  may  be  more  illuminating 
than  a  day's  experiences.  One  does  not  need  to  go  to 
the  front  for  them.  Sometimes  they  come  to  the  gate- 
way of  our  chateau.  They  are  pages  at  random  out 
of  a  library  of  overwhelming  information. 

One  of  the  aviation  grounds  is  not  far  away.  Look 
skyward  at  almost  any  hour  of  the  day  and  you  will  see 
a  plane,  its  propeller  a  roar  or  a  hum  according  to  its 
altitude.  Sometimes  it  is  circling  in  practice;  again, 
it  is  off  to  the  front.  At  break  of  day  the  planes 
appear;  in  the  gloaming  they  return  to  roost. 

If  an  aviator  has  leave  for  two  or  three  days  in 
summer  he  starts  in  the  late  afternoon,  flashing  over 
that  streak  of  Channel  in  half  an  hour  and  may  be  at 
home  for  dinner  without  getting  any  dust  on  his  clothes 
or  having  to  bother  with  m.ilitan/  red  tape  at  steamer 
gangways  or  customs  houses. 

The  airmen  are  a  type,  with  certain  marked  charac- 
teristics.    No  nervous  man  is  wanted,  and  it  is  time 

433 


434    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

for  an  aviator  to  take  a  rest  at  the  first  sign  of  nerves. 
They  seem  shy  and  diffident,  men  of  the  kind  given  to 
observation  rather  than  to  talking;  men  accustomed  to 
using  their  eyes  and  hands.  It  is  difficult  to  realise 
that  some  quiet  young  fellow,  who  is  pointed  out,  has 
had  so  many  hairbreadth  escapes.  What  tales, 
worthy  of  Arabian  Nights'  heroes  who  are  borne  away 
on  magic  carpets,  they  bring  home,  relating  them  as 
matter-of-factly  as  if  they  had  broken  a  shoelace. 

Up  in  their  seats,  a  whir  of  the  motor,  and  they  are 
off  on  another  adventure.  They  shy  at  mention  of 
their  names  in  print,  for  that  is  not  good  for  the  spirit 
of  corps  of  this  newest  branch  in  the  service  of  war. 
Anonymity  is  absolute.  Everything  is  done  by  the 
corps  for  the  corps.  Possibly  because  it  is  so  young, 
because  it  started  with  chosen  men,  the  British  Avia- 
tion Corps  is  unsurpasesd;  but  partly  it  is  because  of 
the  British  temperament,  with  that  combination  of 
coolness  and  innate  love  of  risk  which  the  British  man- 
ner sometimes  belies. 

Something  of  the  old  spirit  of  knighthood  character- 
ises air  service.  It  is  individual  work;  its  numbers 
are  relatively  few.  I  like  one  of  the  aviation  customs, 
not  for  its  chivalry  alone,  but  because  it  makes  one  feel 
more  kindly  toward  the  Germans.  If  a  German  avia- 
tor has  to  descend  in  the  British  lines,  whether  from 
motor  trouble  or  because  he  is  winged  by  an  anti- 
aircraft gun,  a  British  aviator  flies  over  the  German 
lines  and  drops  a  "  message-bag  "  with  long  streamers 
telling  whether  the  unfortunate  one  is  dead  or  alive, 
and  the  Germans  do  the  same. 

Some  mornings  ago  I  saw  several  young  soldiers 
with  notebooks  going  about  our  village  street.     They 


MANY  PICTURES  435 

^•crc  from  the  cadet  school  where  privates,  from  the 
trenches,  take  a  course  and  return  with  chocolate  drops 
on  their  sleeve-bands  as  commissioned  officers.  This 
was  a  course  in  billeting.  For  ours  is  not  an  army  in 
tents,  but  one  Hving  in  French  houses  and  barns.  The 
pupils  were  learning  how  to  carry  out  this  delicate 
task;  for  delicate  it  is.  A  stranger  speaking  another 
language  becomes  the  guest  of  the  host  for  whom  he  is 
fighting.  Mr.  Atkins  receives  only  shelter;  he  sup- 
plies his  own  meals.  His  excess  of  marmalade  one 
sees  yellowing  the  cheeks  of  the  children  in  the  family 
where  he  is  at  home.  Madame  objects  only  to  his 
efforts  to  cook  in  her  kitchen;  womanlike,  she  would 
rather  handle  the  pots  and  pans  herself. 

Tommy  is  thoroughly  instructed  in  his  duty  as  guest 
and  under  a  discipline  that  is  merciless  so  far  as  con- 
duct toward  the  population  goes;  so  the  two  get  on 
better  than  French  and  English  military  authorities 
feared  that  they  might.  Time  has  taught  them  to 
understand  each  other  and  see  that  difference  in  race 
does  not  mean  absence  of  human  qualities  in  common, 
though  differently  expressed.  Many  armies  I  have 
seen,  but  never  one  better  behaved  than  the  British 
army  in  France  and  Flanders  in  its  respect  for  prop- 
erty and  the  rights  of  the  population. 

And  while  the  fledgling  officers  are  going  on  with 
their  billeting,  we  hear  the  t-r-r-t  of  a  machine  gun  at 
a  machine-gun  school  about  a  mile  distant,  where 
picked  men  also  from  the  trenches  receive  instruction 
in  the  use  of  an  arm  new  to  them.  There  are  other 
schools  within  sound  of  the  guns  teaching  the  art  of 
war  to  an  expanding  army  in  the  midst  of  war,  with  the 
teachers  bringing  their  experience  from  the  battle-line, 


436    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"  Their  shops  and  their  houses  all  have  fronts  of 
glass,"  wrote  a  Sikh  soldier  home,  "  and  even  the  poor 
are  rich  in  this  bountiful  land." 

Sikhs  and  Ghurkas  and  Rajputs  and  Pathans  and 
Gherwahs,  the  brown-skinned  tribesmen  in  India,  have 
been  on  a  strange  Odyssey,  bringing  picturesqueness 
to  the  khaki  tone  of  modern  war.  Aeroplanes  inter- 
ested them  less  than  a  trotting  dog  in  a  wheel  for 
drawing  water.     They  would  watch  that  for  hours. 

Still  fresh  in  mind  is  a  scene  when  the  air  seemed  a 
moist  sponge  and  all  above  the  earth  was  dripping  and 
all  under  foot  a  mire.  I  was  homesick  for  the  flash  on 
the  windows  of  the  New  York  skyscrapers  or  the 
gleam  on  the  Hudson  of  that  bright  sunlight  in  a  drier 
air,  that  is  the  secret  of  the  American's  nervous  energy. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  it  was  enough  to  have  to  exist  in 
Northern  France  at  that  season  of  the  year,  let  alone 
fighting  Germans. 

Out  of  the  drizzly,  misty  rain  along  a  muddy  road 
and  turning  past  us  came  the  Indian  cavalry,  which, 
like  the  British  cavalry,  had  fought  on  foot  in  the 
trenches,  while  their  horses  led  the  leisurely  life  of  true 
equine  gentry.  Erect  in  their  saddles,  their  martial 
spirit  defiant  of  the  weather,  their  black  eyes  flashing 
as  they  looked  toward  the  reviewing  officers,  troop 
after  troop  of  these  sons  of  the  East  passed  by,  every 
one  seeming  as  fit  for  review  as  if  he  had  cleaned  his 
uniform  and  equipment  in  his  home  barracks  instead 
of  in  French  barns. 

One  asked  who  had  trained  them;  who  had  fash- 
ioned the  brown  clay  into  resolute  and  loyal  obedience 
which  stood  the  test  of  a  Flanders  winter?  What  was 
the  force  which  could  win  them  to  cross  the  seas  to 
fight  for  England?     Among  the  brown  faces  topped 


MANY  PICTURES  437 

with  turbans  appeared  occasional  white  faces.  These 
were  the  men;  these  the  force. 

The  marvel  was  not  that  the  Indians  were  able  to 
fight  as  well  as  they  did  in  that  climate,  but  that  they 
fought  at  all.  What  welcome  summer  brought  from 
their  gleaming  black  eyes  1  July  or  August  could  not 
be  too  hot  for  them.  On  a  plateau  one  afternoon  I 
saw  them  having  a  gymkana.  It  was  a  treat  for  the 
King  of  the  Belgians,  who  has  had  few  holidays,  in- 
deed, this  last  year,  and  for  the  French  peasants  who 
came  from  the  neighbourhood.  Yelling,  wild  as  they 
were  in  tribal  days  before  the  British  brought  order 
and  peace  to  India,  the  horsemen  galloped  across  the 
open  space,  picking  up  handkerchiefs  from  the  ground 
and  impaling  tent  pegs  on  their  lances.  The  French 
peasants  clapped  their  hands  and  the  British  Indian 
officers  said,  "Good!"  when  the  performer  suc- 
ceeded, or,  "  Too  bad!  "  when  he  failed. 

If  you  asked  the  officers  for  the  secret  of  the  Indian 
Empire  they  said:  "We  try  to  be  fair  to  the  na- 
tives !  "  which  means  that  they  are  just  and  even-tem- 
pered. An  enormous,  loose-jointed  machine  the  Brit- 
ish Empire,  which  seems  sometimes  to  creak  a  bit  but 
yet  holds  together  for  that  very  reason.  Imperial 
weight  may  have  interfered  with  British  adaptability 
to  the  kind  of  warfare  which  was  the  one  kind  that  the 
Germans  had  to  train  for;  but  certainly  some  English- 
men must  know  how  to  rule. 

That  church  bell  across  the  street  from  our  chateau 
begins  its  clangour  at  dawn,  sum.m.oning  the  French 
women  and  children  and  the  old  men  to  the  fields  in 
harvest  time.  But  its  peals  carrying  across  the  farm- 
lands are  softened  by  distance  and  sweet  to  the  tired 


438    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

workers  In  the  evening.  In  the  morning  Its  peal  In 
their  ears  tells  them  that  the  day  Is  long  and  they  have 
much  to  do  before  dark.  After  that  thought  I  never 
complained  because  It  robbed  me  of  my  sleep.  I  felt 
ashamed  not  to  be  up  and  doing  myself,  and  worked 
with  a  better  spirit. 

''Will  they  do  it?" 

We  asked  this  question  as  often  In  our  mess  In  those 
August  days  as,  Will  the  Russians  lose  Warsaw? 
Would  the  peasants  be  able  to  get  in  their  crops,  with 
all  the  able-bodied  men  away?  I  had  inside  informa- 
tion from  the  village  mayor  and  the  blacksmith  and  the 
baker  that  they  would.  A  financial  expert,  the  baker. 
Of  course,  he  said  that  France  would  go  on  fighting  till 
the  German  was  beaten,  just  as  the  old  men  and  the 
women  and  children  said,  whether  the  church  bell  was 
clanging  the  matins  or  the  angelus.  But  there  was 
the  question  of  finances.  It  took  money  to  fight. 
The  i\mericans,  he  knew,  had  more  money  than  they 
knew  what  to  do  with  —  as  Europeans  universally 
think,  only,  personally,  I  find  that  I  was  overlooked  in 
the  distribution  —  and  If  they  would  loan  the  Allies 
some  of  their  spare  billions,  Germany  was  surely 
beaten. 

A  busy  man  the  blacksmith,  and  brawny.  If  he  had 
no  spreading  chestnut  tree;  busy  not  only  shoeing 
farmhorses,  but  repairing  American  reapers  and  bind- 
ers, whose  owners  profited  exceedingly  and  saved  the 
day.  But  not  all  farmers  felt  that  they  could  afford 
the  charge.  These  kept  at  their  small  patches  with 
sickles.  Gradually  the  carpets  of  gold  waving  in  the 
breeze  became  bundles  lying  on  the  stubble,  and  great 
conical  harvest  stacks  rose,  while  children  gathered 
the  stray  stems  left  on  the  ground  by  the  reapers  till 


MANY  PICTURES  439 

they  had  Immense  bouquets  of  wheat-heads  under  their 
arms,  enough  to  make  two  or  three  loaves  of  the  pain 
de  menage  that  the  baker  sold.  So  the  peasants  did 
it;  they  won;  and  this  was  some  compensation  for  the 
loss  of  Warsaw. 

One  morning  we  heard  troops  marching  past,  which 
was  not  unusual.  But  these  were  French  troops  in 
the  British  zone,  en  route  from  somewhere  in  France 
to  somewhere  else  in  France.  There  was  not  a  person 
left  in  any  house  in  that  village.  Everybody  was  out, 
with  affection  glowing  in  their  eyes.  For  these  were 
their  own  —  their  soldiers  of  France. 

When  you  see  a  certain  big  limousine  flying  a  small 
British  flag  pass  you  know  that  it  belongs  to  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief; and  though  it  may  be  occupied  only 
by  one  of  his  aides,  often  you  will  have  a  glimpse  of 
a  man  with  a  square  chin  and  a  drooping  white 
moustache,  who  Is  the  sole  one  among  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  at  the  British  front  who  wears  the  crossed 
batons  of  a  field  marshal. 

It  is  erroneous  to  think  that  Sir  John  French  or  any 
other  commander,  though  that  is  the  case  in  time  of 
action,  spends  all  his  time  in  the  private  house  occupied 
as  headquarters,  designated  by  two  wisps  of  flags, 
studying  a  map  and  sending  and  receiving  messages, 
when  the  trench  line  remains  stationary.  He  goes 
here  and  there  on  inspections.  It  is  the  only  way  that 
a  modern  leader  may  let  his  officers  and  men  know 
that  he  is  a  being  of  flesh  and  blood  and  not  a  name 
signed  to  reports  and  orders.  A  machine-gun  com- 
pany I  knew  had  a  surprise  when  resting  in  a  field 
waiting  for  orders.  They  suddenly  recognised  in  a 
figure  coming  through  an  opening  in  a  hedge  the  su- 


440    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

preme  head  of  the  army  in  France.  There  was  no 
need  of  a  call  to  attention.  The  effect  was  like  an 
electric  shock,  which  sent  every  man  to  his  place  and 
made  his  backbone  a  steel  rod.  Those  crossed  batons 
represented  a  dizzy  altitude  to  that  battery  which 
had  just  come  out  from  England.  Sir  John  walked 
up  and  down,  looking  over  men  and  guns  after  their 
nine  months'  drill  at  home,  and  said,  "  Very  good!  " 
and  was  away  to  other  Inspections  where  he  might  not 
necessarily  say,  "  Very  good!  " 

Frequently  his  inspections  are  formal.  A  battalion 
or  a  brigade  is  drawn  up  In  a  field,  or  they  march  past. 
Then  he  usually  makes  a  short  speech.  On  one  occa- 
sion the  officers  had  arranged  a  platform  for  the 
speech-making.  Sir  John  gave  it  a  glance  and  that 
was  enough.  It  was  the  end  of  such  platforms  erected 
for  him. 

"Inspections!  They  are  second  nature  to  us!" 
said  a  new  army  man.  "  We  were  Inspected  and  In- 
spected at  home  and  we  are  inspected  and  Inspected 
out  here.  If  there  is  anything  wrong  with  us  it  is  the 
general's  own  fault  if  it  isn't  found  out.  When  a 
general  Is  not  inspecting,  some  man  from  the  medical 
corps  is  disinfecting." 

Battalions  of  the  new  army  are  frequently  billeted 
for  two  or  three  days  in  our  village.  The  barn  up  the 
road  I  know  is  capable  of  housing  twenty  men  and  one 
officer;  for  this  is  chalked  on  the  door.  Before  they 
turn  in  for  the  night  the  men  frequently  sing,  and  the 
sound  of  their  voices  is  pleasant. 

A  typical  Inspection  was  one  that  I  saw  in  the  main 
street.  The  battalion  was  drawn  up  In  full  marching 
equipment  on  the  road.  Of  those  officers  with  packs 
on  their  backs  one  was  only  nineteen.     This  Is  the 


MANY  PICTURES  441 

limit  of  youth  to  acquire  a  chocolate  drop  on  its  arm. 
The  sergeant  major  was  an  old  regular,  the  knowing 
backbone  of  the  battalion,  which  had  taken  the  men  of 
clay  and  taught  them  their  letters  and  then  how  to  spell 
and  to  add  and  subtract  and  divide.  One  of  those  im- 
pressive red  caps  arrived  In  a  car,  and  the  general  who 
wore  It  went  slowly  up  and  down  the  line,  front  and 
rear,  examining  rifles  and  equipment,  while  the  young 
ofl^cers  and  the  old  sergeant  were  hoping  that  Jones  or 
Smith  hadn't  got  some  dust  in  his  rifle-barrel  at  the  last 
moment. 

Brokers  and  carpenters,  bankers  and  mechanics, 
clerks  and  labourers,  the  new  army  is  like  the  army  of 
France,  composed  of  all  classes.  One  evening  I  had  a 
chat  with  two  young  fellows  in  a  battalion  quartered 
in  the  village,  who  were  seated  beside  the  road.  Both 
came  from  Buckinghamshire.  One  was  a  schoolmas- 
ter and  the  other  an  architect.  They  were  "  bunkies," 
pals,  chums. 

"  When  did  you  enlist?  "  I  asked. 

"  In  early  September,  after  the  Marne  retreat. 
We  thought  that  it  was  our  duty,  then.  But  we've 
been  a  long  time  arriving." 

"  How  do  you  like  It?" 

"  We  are  not  yet  masters  of  the  language,  we  find," 
said  the  schoolmaster,  "  though  I  had  a  pretty  good 
book  knowledge  of  It." 

"  I'm  learning  the  gestures  fast,  though,"  said  the 
architect. 

"  The  French  are  glad  to  see  us,"  said  the  school- 
master. "  They  call  us  the  Keetcheenaires.  I  fancy 
they  thought  we  were  a  long  time  coming.  But  now 
we  are  here,  I  think  they  will  find  that  we  can  hold  up 
our  end." 


442    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

They  had  the  fresh  complexions  which  come  from 
healthy,  outdoor  work.  There  was  something  en- 
gaging in  their  boyishness  and  their  views.  For  they 
had  a  wider  range  of  interests  than  that  professional 
soldier,  Mr.  Atkins,  these  citizens  who  had  taken  up 
arms.  They  knew  what  trench-fighting  meant  by 
work  in  practice  trenches  at  home, 

"  Of  course  it  will  not  be  quite  the  same ;  theory  and 
practice  never  are,"  said  the  schoolmaster. 

"  We  ought  to  be  well-grounded  in  the  principles," 
said  the  architect — imagine  the  average  Mr.  Atkins 
talking  in  such  language !  — "  and  they  say  that  in  a 
week  or  two  of  actual  experience  you  will  have  mas- 
tered the  details  that  could  not  be  taught  in  England. 
Then,  too,  having  shells  burst  around  you  will  be 
strange  at  first.  But  I  think  our  battalion  will  give  a 
good  account  of  itself,  sir.  All  the  Bucks  men  have !  " 
There  crept  in  the  pride  of  regiment,  of  locality,  which 
is  so  characteristically  Anglo-Saxon. 

They  change  life  at  the  front,  these  new  army  men. 
If  a  carpenter,  a  lawyer,  a  sign-painter,  an  accountant, 
is  wanted,  you  have  only  to  speak  to  a  new  army  bat- 
talion commander  and  one  is  forthcoming  —  a  million- 
aire, too,  for  that  matter,  who  gets  his  shilling  a  day 
for  serving  his  country.  Their  intelligence  permitted 
the  architect  and  the  schoolmaster  to  have  no  illusions 
about  the  character  of  the  war  they  had  to  face.  The 
pity  was  that  such  a  fine  force  as  the  new  army,  which 
had  not  become  trench  stale,  could  not  have  a  free 
space  in  which  to  make  a  great  turning  movement,  in- 
stead of  having  to  go  against  that  solid  battle-front 
from  Switzerland  to  the  North  Sea. 

We  have  heard  enough  —  quite  enough  for  most  of 


MANY  PICTURES  443 

us  —  about  the  German  Crown  Prince.  But  there  is 
also  a  prince  with  the  British  army  in  France.  No 
lieutenant  looks  younger  for  his  years  than  this  one  in 
the  Grenadier  Guards,  and  he  seems  of  the  same 
type  as  the  others  when  you  see  him  marching  with 
his  regiment  or  off  for  a  walk  smoking  a  briar-wood 
pipe.  There  are  some  officers  who  would  rather  not 
accompany  him  on  his  walks,  for  he  can  go  fast  and 
far.  He  makes  regular  reports  of  his  observations, 
and  he  has  opportunities  for  learning  which  other  sub- 
alterns lack,  for  he  may  have  both  the  staff  and  the 
army  as  personal  instructors.  Otherwise,  his  life  is 
that  of  any  other  subaltern;  for  there  is  an  instrument 
called  the  British  Constitution  which  regulates  many 
things.  A  little  shy,  very  desirous  to  learn,  is  Albert 
Edward,  Prince  of  Wales,  heir  to  the  throne  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  and  the  Empire  of  India.  He 
might  be  called  the  willing  prince. 

This  was  one  of  the  shells  that  hit  —  one  of  the 
hundred  that  hit.  The  time  was  summer;  the  place, 
the  La  Bassee  region.  Probably  the  fighting  was  all 
the  harder  here  because  it  is  so  largely  blind.  When 
you  cannot  see  what  an  enemy  is  doing  you  keep  on 
pumping  shells  into  the  area  which  he  occupies;  you 
take  no  risks  with  him. 

The  visitor  may  see  about  as  much  of  what  is  going 
on  in  the  La  Bassee  region  as  an  ant  can  see  of  the 
surrounding  landscape  when  promenading  in  the  grass. 
The  only  variation  in  the  flatness  of  the  land  is  the 
overworked  ditches  which  try  to  drain  it.  Look  up- 
ward and  rows  of  poplar  trees  along  the  level  and  a 
hedge,  a  grove,  a  cottage,  or  trees  and  shrubs  around 
it,  limit  your  vision.     Thus,  if  a  breeze  starts  timidly 


444    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

in  a  field  it  is  stopped  before  it  goes  far.  That  "  hot 
corner  "  is  all  the  hotter  for  a  burning  July  sun.  The 
army  water-carts  which  run  back  to  wells  of  cool  water 
are  busy  filling  empty  canteens,  while  shrapnel  trims 
the  hedges. 

A  stretcher  was  being  borne  into  the  doorway  of  an 
estaminet  which  had  escaped  destruction  by  shells,  and 
above  the  door  was  chalked  some  lettering  which  indi- 
cated that  it  was  a  first  clearing  station  for  the 
wounded.  Lying  on  other  stretchers  on  the  floor  were 
some  wounded  men.  Of  the  two  nearest,  one  had  a 
bandage  around  his  head  and  one  a  bandage  around 
his  arm.  They  had  been  stunned,  which  was  only 
natural  when  you  have  been  as  close  as  they  had  to  a 
shell-burst  —  a  shell  that  made  a  hit.  The  concussion 
was  bound  to  have  this  effect. 

A  third  man  was  the  best  illustration  of  shell  de- 
structiveness.  Bullets  make  only  holes.  Shells  make 
gouges,  fractures,  pulp.  He,  too,  had  a  bandaged 
head  and  had  been  hit  in  several  places;  but  the 
worst  wound  was  in  the  leg,  where  an  artery  had  been 
cut.  He  was  weak,  with  a  sort  of  where-am-I  look 
in  his  eyes.  If  the  fragment  which  had  hit  his  leg 
had  hit  his  head,  or  his  neck,  or  his  abdomen,  he  would 
have  been  killed  instantly.  He  was  an  illustration  of 
how  hard  it  is  to  kill  a  man  even  with  several  shell- 
fragments,  unless  some  of  them  strike  in  the  right 
place.  For  he  was  going  to  live;  the  surgeon  had 
whispered  the  fact  in  his  ear,  that  one  important  fact. 
He  had  beaten  the  German  shell,  after  all. 

Returning  by  the  same  road  by  which  we  came  a  mo- 
tor car  ran  swiftly  by,  the  only  kind  of  car  allowed  on 
that  road.  We  had  a  glimpse  of  the  big  painted  red 
cross  on  an  ambulance  side,  and  at  the  rear,  where  the 


MANY  PICTURES  445 

curtains  were  rolled  up  for  ventilation,  of  four  pairs 
of  soldier  boot-soles  at  the  end  of  four  stretchers, 
which  had  been  slid  into  place  at  the  estaminet  by  the 
sturdy,  kindly,  experienced  medical  corps  men. 

Only  one  ambulance,  dust-covered,  of  the  colour  of 
the  road  itself  came  along,  clear  of  any  blast  of  shells; 
nothing  at  the  front  sends  the  same  chill  down  the 
spine  as  the  thought  of  a  man  wounded  by  a  shell  being 
hit  a  second  time  by  a  shell.  It  rarely  happens,  so 
prompt  and  so  shrewd  is  the  work,  of  the  Royal  Army 
Medical  Corps. 

Before  we  reached  the  village  the  ambulance 
passed  us  on  the  way  back  to  the  estaminet.  Very 
soon  after  the  shell-burst,  a  telephone  bell  had  rung 
down  the  line  from  the  extreme  front  calling  for  an 
ambulance  and  stating  the  number  of  men  hit,  so  that 
everybody  would  know  what  to  prepare  for.  At  the 
village,  which  was  outside  the  immediate  danger  zone, 
was  another  clearing  station.  Here  the  stretchers 
were  taken  into  a  house  —  taken  without  a  jolt  by  men 
who  were  specialists  in  handling  stretchers  —  for  any 
redressing  if  necessary,  before  another  ambulance 
started  them  on  a  journey,  with  motor  trucks  and  staff 
automobiles  giving  right  of  way,  to  a  spotless  white 
hospital  ship  which  would  take  them  home  to  England 
the  next  night. 

It  had  been  an  incident  of  life  at  the  front  and  of 
the  organisation  of  war,  causing  less  flurry  than  an 
ambulance  call  to  an  accident  in  a  great  city. 


XXXV 

BRITISH    PROBLEMS 

The  people  behind  an  army  —  Military  traditions  —  The  "regulars" 
at  Mons  — Our  ideas  of  conscription  —  British  pride  of  regiment 

—  Our  West  Point  system  —  Sandhurst  and  the  German  sys- 
tem—  Martial  team-play  an  instinct  —  The  gallant  British 
Expeditionary  Force  —  A  perfect  instrument  —  Mr.  Thomas 
Atkins,  hero  —  England  after  the  Marne  —  Empire-wide 
problems  —  The  first  year  wastage  —  Making  a  new  army  — 
Kitchener  the  man  —  Characteristics  of  the  British  —  The  last 
battle  that  counts  —  The  recruiting  —  Free  institutions  versus  a 
feudal    socialistic   organisation — "Putting   their    backs    into   it" 

—  The  British  type  persists  —  Freedom  or  "  verboten  "  on  every 
street  corner?  —  England's   sturdiest  blows  yet  to  come. 

Throughout  the  summer  of  19 15  the  world  was 
asking,  What  about  the  new  British  army?  Why  was 
it  not  attacking  at  the  opportune  moment  when  Ger- 
many was  throwing  her  weight  against  Russia?  A 
facile  answer  is  easy;  indeed,  facile  answers  are  al- 
ways easy.  Unhappily,  they  are  rarely  correct. 
None  that  was  given  in  this  Instance  was,  to  my  mind. 
They  sought  to  put  a  finger  on  one  definite  cause; 
again,  on  an  Individual  or  a  set  of  individuals. 

The  reasons  were  manifold;  as  old  as  Waterloo,  as 
fresh  as  the  last  speech  In  Parliament.  They  were 
inherent  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  Whoever  raised 
a  voice  and  said,  This,  or  that,  or  you,  are  responsible! 
should  first  have  looked  into  his  own  mind  and  Into 
the  history  of  his  race  and  then  into  a  mirror.  Least 
of  all  should  any  American  have  been  puzzled  by 
the  delay. 

"  Oh,  we  should  have  done  better  than  that  —  we 

446 


BRITISH  PROBLEMS  447 

arc  Americans  1  "  I  hear  my  countrymen  say.  Per- 
haps we  should.  I  hope  so;  I  believe  so.  The 
British  public  thought  that  they  were  going  to  do  bet- 
ter; mihtary  men  were  surprised  that  they  did  as  well. 

Along  with  laws  and  language  we  have  inherited 
our  mihtary  Ideas  from  England.  In  many  qualities 
we  are  different  —  a  distinct  type;  but  In  nothing  are 
we  more  like  the  British  than  In  our  attitude  toward 
the  soldier  and  toward  war.  The  character  of  any 
army  reflects  the  character  of  Its  people.  An  army  is 
the  fist;  but  the  muscle,  the  strength  of  the  physical 
organism  behind  the  blow  in  the  long  run  belong  to 
the  people.  What  they  have  prepared  for  In  peace 
they  receive  In  war,  which  decides  whether  they  have 
been  living  in  the  paradise  of  a  fool  or  of  a  wise  man. 

As  a  boy  I  was  brought  up  to  believe,  as  an  inherit- 
ance of  the  American  Revolution,  that  one  American 
could  whip  two  Englishmen  and  five  or  six  of  any 
other  nationality,  which  made  the  feathers  of  the  eagle 
perched  on  the  national  escutcheon  look  glossy.  It 
was  a  satisfying  sort  of  faith.  Americans  had  never 
tried  five  or  six  of  any  first-class  fighting  race;  but  that 
was  not  a  thought  which  occurred  to  me.  As  we  had 
won  victories  over  the  English  and  the  English  had 
whipped  the  French  at  Waterloo,  the  conclusion 
seemed  obvious. 

English  boys,  I  understand,  also  had  been  brought 
up  to  believe  that  one  Englishman  could  whip  five  or 
six  men  of  any  other  nationality,  but,  I  take  It  for 
granted,  only  two  Americans.  This  clothed  the 
British  lion  with  majesty,  while  the  lower  ratio  of  su- 
periority over  Americans  returned  the  compliment  In 
kind  from  the  sons  of  the  Hon  to  the  sons  of  the 
eagle. 


448    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

After  I  began  to  read  history  for  myself  and  to 
think  as  I  read,  I  found  that  when  British  and  Ameri 
cans  had  met,  the  generals  on  either  side  were  solid 
tous  about  having  superior  forces,  and  In  case  of  odds 
of   two    to    one    they   made    a    "  strategic   retreat.' 
When  either  side  was  beaten,  the  other  always  ex 
plained  that  he  was  overcome  by  superior  numbers 
though  perhaps  the  adversary  had  not  more  than  ten 
or  fifteen  per  cent,  advantage.     Then  I  learned  that 
the  British  had  not  whipped  five  or  six  times  their 
numbers  on  the  Continent  of  Europe.     The  British 
Expeditionary  Force  made  as  fine  an  effort  to  do  so 
at  Mons  as  was  ever  attempted  in  history,  but  they 
did  not  succeed. 

It  was  a  regular  army  that  fought  at  Mons.  The 
only  two  first-class  nations  which  depend  upon  regu- 
lars to  do  their  fighting  are  the  British  and  the  Ameri- 
can. This  is  the  vital  point  of  similarity  which  Is 
the  practical  manifestation  of  our  military  Ideas.  We 
have  been  the  earth's  spoiled  children,  thanks  to  the 
salt  seas  between  us  and  other  powerful  military  na- 
tions. Before  any  other  power  could  reach  the 
United  States  It  must  overwhelm  the  British  navy, 
and  then  it  must  overwhelm  ours  and  bring  its  forces 
in  transports.  Sea-power,  you  say.  That  is  the 
facile  word,  so  ready  to  the  lips  that  we  do  not  realise 
the  wonder  of  it  any  more  than  of  the  sun  rising  and 
setting. 

When  we  want  soldiers  our  plan  still  Is  to  advertise 
for  them.  The  ways  of  our  ancestors  remain  ours. 
We  think  that  the  volunteer  must  necessarily  make 
the  best  soldier  because  he  offers  his  services;  while 
the  conscript  —  rather  a  term  of  opprobrium  to  us  — 
must  be  lukewarm.     It  hardly  occurs  to  us  that  some 


BRITISH  PROBLEMS  449 

forms  of  persuasion  may  ^iinount  to  conscription,  or 
that  the  volunteer,  won  by  oratorical  appeal  to  his 
emotions  or  by  social  pressure,  may  suffer  a  reaction 
after  enlistment  which  will  make  him  lukewarm  also, 
particularly  as  he  sees  others,  also  young  and  fit,  hang- 
ing back.  Nor  does  it  occur  to  us  that  there  may  be 
virtue  in  that  fervour  of  national  patriotism  aroused  by 
the  command  that  all  must  serve,  which  on  the  Con- 
tinent in  this  war,  has  meant  universal  exaltation  to 
sacrifice.  The  life  of  Jones  means  as  much  to  him  as 
the  life  of  Smith  does  to  him;  and  when  the  whole 
nation  Is  called  to  arms  there  ought  to  be  no  favour- 
ites in  life-giving. 

For  the  last  hundred  years,  if  we  except  the  Ameri- 
can Civil  War,  ours  have  been  comparatively  little 
wars.  The  British  regular  army  has  policed  an  em- 
pire and  sent  punitive  expeditions  against  rebellious 
tribes  with  paucity  of  numbers,  in  a  work  which  the 
British  so  well  understand.  Our  little  regular  army 
took  care  of  the  Red  Indians  as  our  frontier  advanced 
from  the  Alleghenies  to  the  Pacific.  To  put  It  bluntly, 
we  have  hired  some  one  to  do  our  fighting  for  us. 

Without  ever  seriously  studying  the  business  of  sol- 
diering, the  average  Anglo-Saxon  thought  of  himself 
as  a  potential  soldier,  taking  his  sense  of  martial  su- 
periority largely  from  the  work  of  the  long-service, 
severely  drilled  regular.  Also,  we  used  our  fists 
rather  than  daggers  or  duelling  swords  In  personal  en- 
counters and,  man  to  man,  unequipped  with  fire-arms 
or  blades,  the  quality  which  Is  responsible  for  our 
sturdy  pioneering  individualism  gave  us  confidence  in 
our  physical  prowess. 

Alas!  modern  wars  are  not  fought  with  fists.  A 
knock-kneed  man  who  knows  how  to  use  a  machine  gun 


450    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

and  has  one  to  use  —  which  is  also  quite  important  — 
could  mow  down  all  the  leading  heavy-v/eights  of  the 
United  States  and  England,  with  the  latest  champion 
leading  the  charge. 

Now,  this  regular  who  won  our  little  wars  was  not 
representative  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  He  was  the 
man  "  down  on  his  luck,"  who  went  to  the  recruiting 
depot.  Soldiering  became  his  profession.  He  was  in 
a  class,  like  priests  and  vagabonds.  When  you  passed 
him  in  the  street  you  thought  of  him  as  a  strange  be- 
ing, but  one  of  the  necessities  of  national  existence. 
It  did  not  interest  you  to  be  a  soldier;  but  as  there 
must  be  soldiers,  you  were  glad  that  men  who  would 
be  soldiers  were  forthcoming. 

When  trouble  broke,  how  you  needed  him !  When 
the  wires  brought  news  of  his  gallantry  you  accepted 
the  deeds  of  this  man  whom  you  had  paid  as  the  re- 
flection of  national  courage,  which  thrilled  you  with 
a  sense  of  national  superiority.  To  him,  it  was  in 
the  course  of  duty;  what  he  had  been  paid  to  do.  He 
did  not  care  about  being  called  a  hero;  but  it  pleased 
the  public  to  make  him  one  —  this  professional  who 
fights  for  a  shilling  a  day  in  England  and  $17.50  a 
month  in  the  United  States. 

Though  when  the  campaign  went  well  the  public 
was  ready  to  take  the  credit  as  a  personal  tribute, 
when  the  campaign  went  illy  they  sought  a  scapegoat, 
and  the  general,  who  might  have  been  a  hero,  was 
sent  to  the  wilderness  perhaps  because  those  busy  men 
in  Congress  or  Parliament  thought  that  the  army  could 
do  without  that  little  appropriation  which  was  needed 
for  some  other  purpose.  The  army  had  failed  to  de- 
liver the  goods  which  it  was  paid  to  produce.  The 
army  was  to  blame,  when,  of  course,  under  free  in- 


BRITISH  PROBLEMS  451 

stitutlons  the  public  was  to  blame,  as  the  public  Is 
master  of  the  army  and  not  the  army  of  the  public. 

A  first  impression  of  the  British  army  is  always 
that  of  the  regiment.  Pride  of  regiment  sometimes 
appears  almost  more  deep-seated  than  army  pride  to 
the  outsider.  It  has  been  so  long  a  part  of  British 
martial  inheritance  that  it  is  bred  in  the  blood.  In  the 
old  days  of  small  armies  and  in  the  later  days  of  small 
wars,  while  Europe  was  making  every  man  a  soldier 
by  conscription,  regiment  vying  with  regiment  won 
the  battles  of  empire.  The  memory  of  the  part  each 
regiment  played  Is  the  Inspiration  of  its  present;  its 
existence  Is  Inseparable  from  the  traditions  of  its  long 
list  of  battle  honours. 

The  British  public  loves  to  read  of  its  Guards'  regi- 
ment and  to  watch  them  in  their  brilliant  uniforms  at 
review.  When  a  cadet  comes  out  of  Sandhurst  he 
names  the  regiment  which  he  wishes  to  join,  Instead  of 
being  ordered  to  a  certain  regiment,  as  in  West  Point. 
It  rests  with  the  regimental  commander  whether  or 
not  he  Is  accepted.  Frequently  the  young  man  of 
wealth  or  family  serves  In  the  Guards  or  another  crack 
regiment  for  a  while  and  resigns,  usually  to  enjoy 
the  semi-leisurely  life  which  is  the  fortune  of  his  in- 
heritance. 

Then  there  are  the  county  line  regiments,  such  as 
the  Yorkshires,  the  Kents,  and  the  Durhams.  In  this 
war  each  county  wanted  to  read  about  Its  own  regi- 
ments at  the  same  time  as  about  the  Guards,  just  as 
Kansas  at  home  would  want  to  read  about  the  Kansas 
regiments  and  Georgians  about  the  Georgia  regiments. 
The  most  trying  feature  of  the  censorship  to  the 
British  public  was  its  refusal  to  allow  the  exploitation 
of  regiments.     The  staff  was  adamant  on  this  point; 


452    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

for  the  staff  was  thinking  for  the  whole  and  of  the 
interests  of  the  whole.  In  the  French  and  the  Ger- 
man armies,  as  in  our  regular  army,  the  regiment  was 
known  by  a  number. 

The  young  man  who  lives  in  the  big  house  on  the 
hill,  the  son  of  the  man  of  wealth  and  power  in  the 
community,  as  a  rule  does  not  go  to  West  Point. 
None  of  the  youth  of  our  self-called  aristocracy, 
which  came  up  the  golden  road  in  a  generation  past 
those  in  modest  circumstances  who  have  generations 
of  another  sort  back  of  them,  think  of  going  into  the 
First  Cavalry  or  the  First  Infantry  for  a  few  years 
as  a  part  of  their  career.  A  few  rich  men's  sons  en- 
ter our  army,  but  only  enough  to  prove  the  rule  by 
the  exception.  They  do  not  regard  the  army  as  "  the 
thing."  It  does  not  occur  to  them  that  they  ought  to 
do  something  for  their  country.  Rather,  their  coun- 
try ought  to  do  something  for  them. 

But  sink  the  plummet  a  little  deeper  and  these  are 
not  our  aristocracy  nor  our  ruling  class,  which  is  too 
numerous  and  too  sound  of  thought  and  principle  for 
them  to  feel  at  home  in  their  company.  One  boy, 
however  humble  his  origin,  may  go  to  West  Point  if 
he  can  pass  the  competitive  examination.  Europe, 
particularly  Germany,  would  not  approve  of  this ;  but 
we  think  it  the  best  way.  The  average  graduate  of 
the  Point,  whether  the  son  of  a  doctor,  a  lawyer,  or  a 
farmer,  sticks  to  the  army  as  his  profession.  We 
maintain  West  Point  for  the  strict  business  purpose 
of  teaching  young  men  how  to  train  our  army  in  time 
of  peace  and  to  lead  and  direct  it  in  time  of  action. 

Our  future  officers  enter  West  Point  when  they  are 
two  years  younger  than  is  the  average  at  Sandhurst; 


BRITISH  PROBLEMS  453 

the  course  is  four  years  compared  with  two  at  Sand- 
hurst. I  should  venture  to  say  that  West  Point  is  the 
harder  grind;  that  the  graduate  of  the  Point  has  a 
more  specifically  academic  military  training  than  the 
graduate  of  Sandhurst.  This  is  not  saying  that  he 
may  be  any  better  in  the  performance  of  the  simple 
duties  of  a  company  officer.  It  is  not  a  new  criticism 
that  we  train  everybody  at  West  Point  to  be  a  gen- 
eral, when  many  of  the  students  may  never  rise  above 
the  command  of  a  battalion.  However,  it  is  a  sig- 
nificant fact  that  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  every 
army  commander  was  a  West  Point  man  and  so  were 
most  of  the  corps  commanders. 

The  doors  are  open  in  the  British  army  for  a  man 
to  rise  from  the  ranks;  not  as  wide  as  in  our  army,  but 
open.  The  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  British  Expedition- 
ary Force,  Sir  William  Robertson,  was  in  the  ranlcs  for 
ten  years.  No  man  not  a  West  Pointer  had  a  posi- 
tion equivalent  in  importance  to  his  at  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War.  His  rise  would  have  been  possible  in  no 
other  European  army. 

But  West  Point  sets  the  stamp  on  the  American 
army  and  Sandhurst  and  Woolwich,  the  engineering 
and  artillery  school,  on  the  British  army.  At  the  end 
of  four  years  at  West  Point  the  men  who  survive 
the  hard  course  may  be  tried  by  courtmartial  not  for 
conduct  unbecoming  an  officer,  but  an  officer  and  a 
gentleman.  They  are  supposed,  whatever  their 
origin,  to  have  absorbed  certain  qualities,  if  they  were 
not  inborn,  which  are  not  easily  described  but  which 
we  all  recognise  in  any  man.  If  they  are  absent  it 
Is  not  the  fault  of  West  Point;  and  if  a  man  cannot 
acquire  them  there,  then  nature  never  meant  them  for 


454    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

him.  From  the  time  he  entered  the  school  the  gov- 
ernment has  paid  his  way;  and  he  is  cared  for  until  he 
dies,  if  he  keeps  step  and  avoids  courtmartials. 

His  position  in  life  is  secure.  His  pay  counting 
everything  is  better  than  that  of  the  average  graduate 
of  a  university  or  a  first-class  professional  school,  who 
practises  a  profession.  Yet  only  three  boys,  I  re- 
member, wanted  to  go  to  West  Point  from  our  con- 
gressional district  in  my  youth.  Nothing  could  bet- 
ter illustrate  the  fact  that  we  are  not  a  military  people. 
From  West  Point  they  go  out  to  the  little  army  which 
is  to  fight  our  wars;  to  the  posts  and  the  Philippines, 
and  become  a  world  in  themselves;  an  isolated  caste 
in  spite  of  themselves.  I  am  not  at  all  certain  that 
either  the  British  or  the  American  officer  works  as 
hard  as  the  German  In  time  of  peace.  Neither  has 
the  practical  incentive  nor  the  determined  driver  be- 
hind him. 

For  it  takes  a  soldier  Secretary  of  War  to  drive  a 
soldier;  for  example,  Lord  Kitchener.  Those 
British  officers,  who  applied  themselves  in  peace  to  the 
mastery  of  their  profession  and  were  not  content  with 
the  day's  routine  requirements,  had  to  play  chess  with- 
out chessmen;  practise  manoeuvres  on  a  board  rather 
than  with  brigades,  divisions,  corps,  and  armies. 
They  became  the  rallying  points  In  the  concourse  of 
untrained  recruits. 

German  and  French  officers  had  the  Incentive  and 
the  chessmen.  The  Great  War  could  not  take  them 
by  surprise.  They  took  the  road  with  a  machine 
whose  parts  had  been  long  assembled.  They  had 
been  trained  for  big  war;  their  ambition  and  intelli- 
gence were  under  the  whip  of  a  definite  anticipation. 

A  factor  overlooked,  but  even  more  significant  than 


BRITISH  PROBLEMS  455 

training  or  staff  work,  was  that  what  might  be  called 
martial  team-play  had  become  an  instinct  with  the  con- 
tinental peoples  through  the  necessity  of  their  situa- 
tion. This  the  Japanese  also  possess.  It  is  the  right 
material  ready  to  hand  for  the  builder.  Not  that  it 
is  the  kind  of  material  one  admires;  but  it  is  the  right 
material  for  making  a  war-machine.  One  had  only 
to  read  the  expert  militar}'  criticism  in  the  British  and 
the  American  press  at  the  outset  of  the  war  to  realise 
how  vague  was  the  truth  of  the  continental  situation  to 
the  average  Englishman  or  American  —  but  not  to 
the  trained  British  staff. 

So  that  little  British  Expeditionary  Force,  in  ratio 
of  number  one  to  twenty  or  thirty'  of  the  French  army, 
crossed  the  Channel  to  help  save  Belgium.  Gallantry 
it  had  worthy  of  the  brightest  chapter  in  the  immortal 
history  of  its  regiments  from  Quebec  to  Kandahar, 
from  Waterloo  to  South  Africa,  Guards  and  Hussars, 
Highlanders  and  Lowlanders,  kilts  and  breecks.  Con- 
naught  Rangers  and  Royal  Fusiliers,  Duke  of  Well- 
ingtons and  Prince  of  Wales'  Own,  come  again  to 
Flanders.  The  best  blood  of  England  was  leading 
Tommy  Atkins.  Whatever  British  aristocracy  is  or 
is  not,  it  never  forgets  its  duty  to  the  England  of  its 
fathers.  It  is  never  ingrate  to  its  fortune.  The  time 
had  come  to  go  out  and  die  for  England,  if  need  be, 
and  these  officers  went  as  their  ancestors  had  gone 
before  them.,  as  they  would  go  to  lectures  at  Oxford, 
to  the  cricket  field  and  the  polo  field,  in  outward 
phlegm,  but  with  a  mighty  passion  in  their  hearts. 

The  Germans  affected  to  despise  this  little  army. 
It  had  not  been  trained  in  the  mass  tactics  which  hurl 
columns  of  flesh  forward  to  gain  tactical  points  that 
have  been  mauled  by  artillery  fire.     You  do  not  use 


456    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

mass  tactics  against  Boers,  nor  against  Afridis  or 
Filipinos.  It  is  difficult  to  combine  the  two  kinds  of 
efficiency.  Those  who  were  on  the  march  to  the  re- 
lief of  the  Peking  legations  recall  how  the  Germans 
were  as  ill  at  ease  in  that  kind  of  work  as  the  Ameri- 
can and  British  were  at  home.  It  made  us  misjudge 
the  Germans  and  the  Germans  misjudge  us  when  they 
thought  of  us  as  trying  to  make  war  on  the  Continent 
of  Europe.  A  small,  mobile,  regular  army,  formed 
to  go  over  seas  and  march  long  distances,  was  to  fight 
in  a  war  where  millions  were  engaged  and  a  day's 
march  would  cover  an  immense  stretch  of  territory 
in  international  calculations  of  gain  and  loss. 

For  its  own  purposes,  the  British  Expeditionary 
Force  was  well-nigh  a  perfect  instrument.  As  quan- 
tity of  ammunition  was  an  important  factor  in  trans- 
port in  the  kind  of  campaign  which  it  was  prepared 
for,  its  guns  were  the  most  accurate  on  a  given  point 
and  Its  system  of  fire  adapted  to  that  end;  but  the 
French  system  of  fire,  with  plentiful  ammunition  from 
near  bases  over  fine  roads,  was  better  adapted  for  a 
continental  campaign. 

To  the  last  button  that  little  army  was  prepared. 
Man  for  man  and  regiment  for  regiment,  I  should  say 
it  was  the  best  force  that  ever  fired  a  shot  in  Europe ; 
this  without  regard  to  national  character.  As  Eng- 
land must  make  every  regular  soldier  count  and  as 
she  depended  upon  the  efficiency  of  the  few  rather 
than  on  numbers,  she  had  trained  her  men  in  mus- 
ketry. No  continental  army  could  afford  to  allow  its 
soldiers  to  expend  the  amount  of  ammunition  on  the 
target  range  that  the  British  had  expended.  Only  by 
practise  can  you  learn  how  to  shoot.  This  gives  the 
soldier  confidence.     He  stays  in  his  trench  and  keeps 


BRITISH  PROBLEMS  457 

on  shooting  because  he  knows  that  he  can  hit  those 

advancing  figures  and  that  this  is  his  best  protection. 
The  more  I  learn,  the  more  I  am  convinced  that  the 
Germans  ought  to  have  got  the  British  Expeditionary 
Force ;  and  the  Germans  were  very  surprised  that  they 
did  not  get  it.  With  their  surprise  developed  a  re- 
spect for  British  arms,  reported  by  all  visitors  to  Ger- 
many. 

Mr.  Thomas  Atkins,  none  other,  is  the  hero  of  that 
retreat  from  Mons.  The  first  statue  raised  in  Lon- 
don after  the  war  ought  to  be  of  him.  If  there  had 
been  five  hundred  thousand  of  him  in  Belgium  at  the 
end  of  the  second  week  in  August,  Brussels  would  now 
be  under  the  Belgian  flag.  Like  many  other  good 
things  in  this  world,  including  the  French  army,  there 
were  not  enough  of  him.  Many  a  company  on  that 
retreat  simply  got  tired  of  retreating,  though  orders 
were  to  fall  back.  It  dug  a  trench  and  lay  down  and 
kept  on  firing  —  accurately,  in  the  regular,  business- 
liike  way,  reinforced  by  the  "  stick  it  "  British  char- 
acter —  until  killed  or  engulfed.  This  held  back  the 
flood  long  enough  for  the  remainder  of  the  army  to 
retire. 

Not  all  the  generalship  emanated  from  generals. 
I  like  best  that  story  of  the  cross-roads  where,  with 
Germans  pressing  hard  on  all  sides,  two  columns  in 
retreat  fell  in  together,  uncertain  which  way  to  go. 
With  confusion  developing  for  want  of  instructions, 
a  lone  exhausted  staff  officer  who  happened  along  took 
charge  and  standing  at  the  junction  in  the  midst  of 
shell-fire  told  every  doubting  unit  what  to  do,  with 
one-two-three  alacrity  of  decision.  His  work  fin- 
ished, he  and  his  red  cap  disappeared,  and  I  never 
could  find  any  one  who  knew  who  he  was. 


458    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

After  the  retreat  and  after  the  victory  of  the 
Marne,  what  was  England's  position?  The  average 
Enghshman  had  thought  that  England's  part  In  the 
alliance  was  to  send  a  small  army  to  France  and  to 
take  care  of  the  German  fleet.  England's  fleet  was 
her  first  consideration;  that  must  be  served;  France's 
demand  for  rifles  and  supplies  must  be  attended  to 
before  the  British  demand;  Serbia  needed  supplies; 
Russia  needed  supplies;  a  rebellion  threatened  in 
South  Africa;  the  Turks  threatened  the  Invasion  of 
Egypt.  England  had  to  spread  her  energy  out  over 
a  vast  empire  with  an  army  that  had  barely  escaped 
annihilation.  Every  soldier  who  fought  must  be  sup- 
plied over  seas.  German  officers  put  a  man  on  a  rail- 
road train  and  he  detrained  near  the  front.  Every 
British  soldier  had  to  go  aboard  a  train  and  then  a 
ship  and  then  disembark  from  the  ship  and  go  aboard 
another  train.  Every  article  of  ordnance,  engineer- 
ing, medical  supply,  food  supply,  must  be  handled 
four  times,  while  in  Germany  they  need  be  handled 
but  twice.  Any  railway  trafl[ic  manager  will  under- 
stand what  this  means.  Both  the  British  supply  sys- 
tem and  the  medical  corps  were  marvels. 

Germany  was  stronger  than  the  British  public 
thought.  Germany  and  Austria  could  put  at  the 
front  in  the  first  six  months  of  the  war  practically 
double  the  number  which  the  Allies  could  maintain. 
Russia  had  multitudes  to  draw  from  In  reserve,  but 
the  need  was  multitudes  at  the  front.  There  she  was 
only  as  strong  as  the  number  she  could  feed  and  equip. 
In  the  first  year  of  the  war  England  suffered  380,000 
casualties  on  land,  six  times  the  number  of  bayonets 
that  she  had  at  Mons.  All  this  wastage  must  be  met 
before  she  could  begin  to  increase  her  forces.     The 


BRITISH  PROBLEMS  459 

length  of  line  on  the  Western  front  that  she  was  hold- 
ing was  not  the  criterion  of  her  effort.  The  French 
who  shared  with  the  British  that  terrible  Ypres  salient 
realised  this. 

Aside  from  the  regulars  she  had  the  Territorials, 
who  are  much  the  same  as  our  National  Guard  and 
varied  in  equality  in  the  same  way.  Native  Indian 
troops  were  brought  to  France  to  face  the  diabolical 
shell-fire  of  modern  guns,  and  Territorials  went  out  to 
India  to  take  the  place  of  the  British  regulars,  who 
were  withdrawn  for  France.  Every  rifle  that  Eng- 
land could  bring  to  the  assistance  of  the  French  in 
their  heroic  stand  was  a  rifle  to  the  good. 

Meanwhile,  she  was  making  her  new  army.  For 
the  first  time  since  Cromwell's  day,  all  classes  in  Eng- 
land were  going  to  war.  Making  an  army  out  of  the 
raw  is  like  building  a  factory  to  be  manned  by  expert 
labour  which  you  have  to  train.  Let  us  even  suppose 
that  the  factory  is  ready  and  that  the  proprietor  must 
mobilise  his  managers,  overseers,  foremen,  and  la- 
bour from  far  and  near  —  a  force  individually  com- 
petent, but  which  had  never  before  worked  together. 
It  would  require  some  time  to  organise  team-play, 
wouldn't  it?  Particularly  it  would  if  you  were  short 
of  managers,  overseers,  and  foremen.  To  express 
my  meaning  from  another  angle,  in  talking  once  with 
an  English  pottery  manufacturer  he  said: 

"  We  do  not  train  our  labour  in  the  pottery  dis- 
trict.    We  breed  it  from  generation  to  generation." 

In  Germany  they  have  not  only  been  training  sol- 
diers, but  breeding  them  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. You  may  think  that  system  is  wrong.  It  may 
be  against  your  ideals.  But  in  fighting  against  that 
system  for  your  ideals  when  war  is  violence  and  kill- 


46o    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ing,  you  must  have  weapons  as  effective  as  the 
enemy's.  You  express  only  a  part  of  Germany's  pre- 
paredness by  saying  that  the  men  who  left  the  plough 
and  the  shop,  the  factory  and  the  office,  became 
trained  soldiers  at  the  command  of  the  staff  as  soon 
as  they  were  in  uniform  and  had  rifles.  These  men 
had  the  instinct  of  military  co-ordination  bred  in  them 
and  so  had  their  officers,  while  England  had  to  take 
men  from  the  plough  and  the  shop,  the  factory  and 
the  office,  and  equip  them  and  teach  them  the  rudi- 
ments of  soldiering  before  she  could  consider  making 
them  into  an  army. 

It  was  one  thing  for  the  spirit  of  British  manhood 
to  rise  to  the  emergency.  Another  and  even  more 
important  requisite  went  with  it.  If  my  country  ever 
faces  such  a  crisis  I  hope  that  we  also  may  have  the 
courage  of  wisdom  which  leaves  an  expert's  work  to 
an  expert.  England  had  Lord  Kitchener,  who  could 
hold  the  imagination  and  the  confidence  of  the  nation 
through  the  long  months  of  preparation,  when  there 
was  little  to  show  except  repetition  of  drills  here  and 
there  on  gloomy  winter  days.  It  required  a  man  with 
a  big  conception  and  patience  and  authority  to  carry 
it  through,  and  recruits  with  an  unflinching  sense  of 
duty.  The  immensity  of  the  task  of  transforming  a 
non-military  people  into  a  great  fighting  force  grew 
on  one  in  all  its  humdrum  and  vital  details  as  he 
watched  the  new  army  forming. 

"  Are  you  learning  to  think  in  big  numbers?  "  was 
Lord  Kitchener's  question  to  his  generals. 

Half  of  the  regular  officers  were  killed  or  wounded. 
Where  the  leaders?  Where  the  drillmasters  for  the 
new  army?  Old  officers  came  out  of  retirement, 
where  they  had  become  used  to  an  easy  life  as  a  rule, 


BRITISH  PROBLEMS  461 

to  twelve  hours  a  day  of  hard  application.  "  Dug- 
outs "  they  were  called.  Veteran  non-commissioned 
officers  had  to  drill  new  ones.  It  was  demonstrated 
that  a  good  infantry  soldier  can  be  made  in  six 
months;  perhaps  in  three.  But  it  takes  seven  months 
to  build  a  rifle-plant;  many  more  months  to  make 
guns  —  and  the  navy  must  never  be  stinted.  Prob- 
ably the  English  are  slow;  slow  and  thoroughgoing. 
They  are  good  at  the  finish,  but  not  quick  at  the  start. 
They  are  used  to  winning  the  last  battle,  which  they 
say  is  the  one  that  counts.  The  complacency  of  em- 
pire with  a  century's  power  was  a  handicap,  no  doubt. 
We  are  inclined  to  lean  forward  on  our  oars,  they  to 
lean  back  —  which  does  not  mean  that  they  cannot 
lean  forward  In  an  emergency  or  that  they  lack  reserve 
strength. 

Public  Impatience  was  inevitable.  It  could  not  be 
kept  silent;  that  is  the  English  of  It  —  the  American, 
too.  We  demand  to  know  what  is  being  done.  It 
was  not  silent  In  the  Civil  War.  From  the  time  that 
McClellan  started  forming  his  new  army  until  the 
Peninsula  was  six  months,  if  I  remember  rightly. 
Von  Moltke,  who  built  the  German  staff  system,  said 
that  the  Civil  War  was  a  strife  between  two  armed 
mobs;  though  I  think  If  he  had  brought  his  Prussians 
to  Virginia  a  year  later,  In  '63,  which  would  have 
ended  the  Civil  War  there  and  then,  he  would  have 
had  an  interesting  time  before  he  returned  to  Berlin. 

The  British  new  army  was  not  to  face  another  new 
army,  but  the  most  thoroughly  organised  military  ma- 
chine that  the  world  has  ever  known.  Not  only  this, 
but  the  Germans,  with  a  good  start  and  their  system 
established,  were  not  standing  still  and  waiting  for  the 
British  to  catch  up,  so  that  the  two  could  begin  again 


462    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

even,  but  were  adapting  themselves  to  the  new  fea- 
tures of  the  war.  They  had  been  the  world's  arms- 
makers.  With  vast  munition  plants  ready,  their 
feudal  socialistic  organisation  could  make  the  most  of 
their  resources  in  men  and  material. 

More  than  two  million  Englishmen  went  to  the  re- 
cruiting depots,  though  no  invader  had  set  foot  on 
their  soil,  and  offered  to  serve  in  France  or  wherever 
they  were  needed  over  seas.  If  no  magic  could  put 
rifles  in  their  hands  or  summon  batteries  of  guns  to 
follow  them  on  the  march,  the  fact  of  their  volunteer- 
ing, when  they  knew  by  watching  from  day  to  day  the 
drudgery  that  it  meant  and  what  trench  warfare  was, 
shows  at  least  that  the  race  is  not  yet  decadent.  Per- 
haps we  should  have  done  better.  No  one  can  know 
until  we  try  it.  If  liberal  treatment  by  the  govern- 
ment and  the  course  set  by  Secretary  Root  means  any- 
thing, our  staff  ought  to  be  better  equipped  for  such  a 
task  than  the  Enghsh  were;  this,  too,  only  war  can 
decide. 

Whatsoever  of  pessimism  appeared  in  the  British 
press  was  telegraphed  to  America.  Pessimism  was 
not  permitted  in  the  German  press.  Imagine  Ger- 
many holding  control  of  the  cable  and  allowing  press 
despatches  from  Germany  to  pass  over  It  with  the 
freedom  that  England  allowed!  Imagine  Germany 
having  waited  as  long  as  England  before  making  cot- 
ton contraband!  The  British  press  demanded  in- 
formation from  the  government  which  the  German 
press  would  never  have  dared  to  ask.  I  have  known 
an  American  correspondent,  fed  out  of  hand  in  Ger- 
many and  thankful  for  anything  that  the  fearful  Ger- 
man war  machine  might  vouchsafe,  turning  a  bellig- 
erent when  he  was  in  London  for  privileges  which 


BRITISH  PROBLEMS  463 

he  would  never  have  thought  of  demanding  In  Ber- 
lin. 

If  an  English  ship  were  reported  sunk,  he  believed 
it  must  be,  despite  the  government's  denial.  Did  he 
go  to  the  Germans  and  demand  that  he  might  publish 
the  rumours  of  what  had  happened  to  the  Moltke  in 
the  Gulf  of  Riga,  or  how  many  submarines  Germany 
had  really  lost?  Indeed,  he  was  unconsciously  pay- 
ing a  compliment  to  British  free  institutions.  He  ex- 
pected more  in  England;  it  seemed  a  right  to  him,  as 
it  would  at  home.  Englishmen  talked  frankly  to  him 
about  mistakes;  he  heard  all  the  gossip;  and  some- 
times he  concluded  that  England  was  in  a  bad  way. 
In  Germany  such  talk  was  not  allowed.  Every  Ger- 
man said  that  the  government  was  absolutely  truth- 
ful; every  German  believed  all  of  its  reports.  But 
ask  this  critical  American  how  he  would  like  to  live 
under  German  rule,  and  then  you  found  how  anti- 
German  he  was  at  heart.  Nothing  succeeds  like  suc- 
cess, and  Germany  was  winning  and  telling  no  one  if 
she  had  any  setbacks. 

If  there  were  a  strike,  the  British  press  made  the 
most  of  it  for  it  was  big  news.  Pessimism  is  the  Eng- 
lishman's natural  way  of  arousing  himself  to  fresh 
energy.  It  is  also  against  habit  to  be  demonstrative 
in  his  effort;  so  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  how  much 
he  is  doing.  Then,  pessimism  brought  recruits;  it 
made  the  Englishman  say,  "  I've  got  to  put  my  back 
into  It!  "  Muddling  there  was  and  mistakes,  such  as 
that  of  the  method  of  attack  at  Gallipoli;  but  in  the 
midst  of  all  this  disspiriting  pessimism,  no  English- 
man thought  of  anything  but  of  putting  his  back  Into 
it  more  and  more.  Lord  Kitchener  had  said  that  It 
was  to  be  a  long  war  and  evidently  it  must  be.     Of 


464    MY  YEAR  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

course,  England's  misfortune  was  in  having  the  war 
catch  her  in  the  transition  from  an  old  order  of  things 
to  social  reforms. 

But  if  the  war  shows  anything  It  Is  that  basically 
English  character  has  not  changed.  She  still  has  un- 
conquerable, dogged  persistence,  and  her  defects  for 
this  kind  of  war  are  not  among  the  least  admirable  of 
her  traits  to  those  who  desire  to  live  their  own  lives 
in  their  own  way,  as  the  English-speaking  people  have 
done  for  five  hundred  years,  without  having  a  ver^ 
boten  sign  on  every  street  corner. 

It  Is  still  the  law  that  when  a  company  of  Infantry 
marches  through  London  it  must  be  escorted  by  a 
policeman.  This  means  a  good  deal:  that  civil  power 
Is  superior  to  military  power.  It  Is  a  symbol  of  what 
Englishmen  have  fought  for  with  spades  and  pitch- 
forks and  what  we  have  fought  Englishmen  for.  My 
own  Idea  Is  that  England  is  fighting  for  It  in  this  strug- 
gle; and  starting  unready  against  a  foe  which  was 
ready,  as  the  free  peoples  always  have,  she  was 
fighting  for  time  and  experience  before  she  could  strike 
her  sturdiest  blows. 


THE    END 


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